


Fool's Gold

by DunmerLover



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alexandria's Genesis, Canon-Typical Misery, Canon-Typical Violence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, In the grim darkness of the far future there is still Alexandria's genesis, Inquisitor/civilian, Pre-Canon, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Size Difference, Straight up inventing back stories for canon characters, Suspension Of Disbelief, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DunmerLover/pseuds/DunmerLover
Summary: A small chartering company is booked to escort an Inquisitor from one world to another - a job which could make or break their struggling business. Among the modest crew, the burden falls on the lone deckhand's shoulders to see his every need is met. But not THAT need - her Captain is adamant about that. They're notthatkind of business.Keeping such a promise is far easier said than done when an Inquisitor can simply take what he wants.
Relationships: Inquisitor Drogan/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be honest, it was only a matter of time being in this fandom before I found my husbando ~~I always thought it would be Corax, I'm as surprised as anyone about that~~.
> 
> I'm trying hard to keep this lore-friendly (a massive shout-out to my boyfriend who's been helping me out so much with that side of things, but I am still getting acquainted with the lore myself and will no doubt miss things and for that, I can only apologise) but some definite suspension of disbelief is required for:  
> \- The scale of the ship, and  
> \- The scale of the journey.
> 
> It's an unspecified amount of time pre-canon because of, you know. The canon. And what happens.
> 
> Also like, stuff happens in this story that I haven't properly tagged. I thought for a long time over what I was gonna do in terms of tagging it and I decided, it would spoil too much of what is to come. See "canon-typical misery". If the stuff I HAVE tagged is manageable, the stuff I haven't will definitely be fine.
> 
> That being said, please be aware of tags, this story builds up to a graphic sex scene and it's not at all consensual. It won't be nice. As always, I don't in any way condone that kind of stuff in real life, I only write my own personal fantasy and upload in the hopes others might enjoy it. As always, because of the content I'm super nervous uploading this.

Aboard the Colossus, work never really ended. The crew woke, they returned to their duties almost straight after, ate for a few moments in between tasks, and returned to bed to start all over. It wasn’t a hard life by any stretch of the imagination, especially compared to what was a reality for many people on the planets below, but it was certainly tiring at times.

However, as she began stripping the bed sheets in one of the guest chambers and stuffing them in a large sack, Eden thought to herself how satisfying it was to crawl into bed after each long day. All the work made those moments of respite so much better. She hauled the sack into an adjacent chamber and did the same in there, not really paying that much attention to her task as she put away the used linen - the deckhand had other things on her mind.

Their Captain was a fantastic boss, having always seen fit to keep each member of her small crew in the know where their schedule was concerned - which clients were booked and when. What kind of time scale they would be looking at for each job. It was always important to know _where_ they were headed to pick up the client - or cargo - and where these must be chartered in order to have _any_ idea how long the journey would take. In order to book new clients, they needed to know the time frames well in advance. And this schedule, the Captain was able to disclose for a forthcoming period of several Terran weeks.

For almost a day now the Colossus had travelled on, diligently, through the relative emptiness of space, and only the Captain herself seemed to know where they were headed. What came next. That schedule, that path they’d each followed since they’d been taken on in the company, seemed to end here. Eden, at least, had been told nothing.

As she dragged the heavy sack through the dark, metal hallways of the cruiser, descending the levels through groaning stairwells until reaching the utility room, Eden thought about just how unusual that was. How unsettling. When she reached the door it slid open to allow her entrance, and closed shut behind as she made her way into the cramped, dingy space. She turned on a light, knelt down to the washer and after pulling open the hatch, began to stuff the used linen inside.

After poring over the matter for the last couple of weeks, as their list of jobs grew shorter and shorter, the girl could only come to two sensible conclusions. The way she saw it, this was a sign the company was finally going under. They’d struggled along for the entire year and a half Eden had been an employee. The payment from the clients was always good, and while the ship was nowhere near big enough to carry cargo in _bulk_ , often this meant the goods made up for that in their quality, and precious cargo was carried at a much higher cost. However, everything they made went straight into the mere running of the ship, and at times it had been hard to make ends meet. Not to mention it was often more costly than it was worth, in terms of resources, to trade that payment back and forth into something they could reliably use to keep their company afloat.

Maybe this was the end for all of them.

Eden shut the hatch, the harsh clang of metal on metal bouncing back to her several times off the walls, and after that the space rang with a hollow silence. That was, until the deckhand tapped a couple of buttons on the washer’s console, and the machine began to thrum deeply as it stirred to life. Captain Riley would surely have told them all _well_ in advance if the company was experiencing _that_ kind of trouble - but she had no way of knowing that for sure. And they’d never had real trouble _finding_ work.

Unless it wasn’t the _company_ that had reached the end of the line. It could’ve been Riley’s way of letting the deckhand down gently, excluding her from the schedule until the Colossus landed on some planet she may or may not know the name of, and finally letting her go.

Was she _that_ bad of a deckhand? Was she really being fired? Riley never seemed to miss an opportunity to sing Eden’s praises, passing on feedback received from clients - not just about Eden, but Emanuel and Sebastian too. On the occasion there was any _criticism_ to be given, it was given. Even then, Riley would only praise the girl for how well she’d adapted. Surely she couldn’t be getting fired, she just couldn’t be. Riley just wouldn’t let her go like that.

Eden sighed quietly to herself, a sound lost over the gentle, continuous thrumming of the washer, and stood, chucking the now-empty sack into a nearby basket. From a shelf she grabbed her cleaning supplies and dropped these in a bucket, and on her way out of the room she took a mop from its place by the door, and made her way back up to the higher levels. As she walked the corridors, much faster this time without the weight to carry, a Servo-skull drifted soundlessly, just a few feet behind as it followed her to the guest chambers, seeming to watch her every move.

She guessed thinking about it - worrying about it - was a waste of energy, and she’d know in time.

When she reached the guest rooms, hardly a moment passed once Eden set her mop and bucket down on the bathroom floor before the main chamber door slid open - the girl looked up and peered around the door frame to see who had come in. She watched her Captain make her way through the bedroom, coming to join Eden in the small bathroom.

The deckhand began to fill up her bucket with water from the sink.

“Riley, what’s up?” she asked. Internally, she hoped her superior had come with _some_ information this time.

The Captain offered a kind, motherly touch to the girl’s arm before leaning back against the wall. “I haven’t been keeping you in the loop,” she began. “With what’s going on here.”

So it _was_ happening. Eden didn’t know whether to be relieved they were finally having this conversation or not. Indeed, her whole body seemed to well up with the anticipation. She swallowed back a growing nausea.

“Yeah, I noticed,” she said, a playful edge to her words as she forced a small grin. “So… what’s going on? Everything’s… _okay_ , right? We ain’t in trouble?”

For a moment Riley seemed quite surprised at the question, dark eyebrows raised, before a warm smile crossed her lined face and her head shook from side to side, slowly. “Oh no, we’re not in _trouble_ , Eden! If I’d thought for a moment you’d think _that_ I’d have talked about this sooner - my aim was to _keep_ you all from worrying needlessly!”

“About what?” the deckhand replied. She shut off the tap and hauled the bucket out of the sink, setting it down on the floor. “What could be _so bad_ we’d worry about it before it happened?”

Eden trusted her, of course she did. She was only twenty years old and Riley was like a mother to her - that first, and Captain second. Up here, among the stars, Riley was the closest thing she could possibly have to a parent. Yet she couldn’t deny the dread growing inside her, more and more by the second. She hadn’t been doing this job very long, what nightmares potentially waited for her out there were still, quite fortunately, beyond her imagination.

Riley sighed to herself, averting her gaze for just a moment before fixing her eyes on Eden’s again. “I’ve been told…” she started. “Our next client… is an Inquisitor.”

“Oh.”

Some of that anticipation dissipated - she still had her job and so there was _nothing_ wrong. Yet at the news the girl’s dread only amplified, her raging heart didn’t settle. On the contrary, it seemed to rise up somewhere in her throat.

She’d never met the Inquisition herself, and had hoped she never would, yet everybody heard stories. Everybody saw those shadowy figures, in clothing and armours fancy enough to stand out from all those around them, stalking about where they thought no one could see, conducting what the common folk such as herself could only describe as _shady stuff_. Rumours told of people dragged away in the dead of night by the Inquisition. Eden swore she’d seen one herself, once, back when she lived in the hive - a fair distance away (thankfully), but whoever they were, they were gone in the blink of an eye.

And these were merely the messengers for the higher-ups. None of the common folk _ever_ saw an actual Inquisitor. They were the ones who lived at the top, in the spires, and never came down to get their hands dirty. _They_ were the ones who decided who got taken away, and when that decision was made, it was final.

At least, that was Eden’s understanding of it, and needless to say, she understood fully why Riley had made the decision she had. It must’ve taken a lot to keep it to herself, to carry this weight on her own.

Must’ve felt good to finally get it off her chest.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her superior’s chuckle, and as she lifted her head to meet Riley’s eye again, she saw that grin on her face was actually much more of a grimace.

“Guess I was right to keep it to myself, huh? You’re worrying. Please don’t worry.”

“How can I just… _not worry_ … about this?”

“C’mon Eden…” the Captain pushed herself from the wall to place her hands on Eden’s shoulders. It was meant to be an intimate gesture, a comforting one, but Riley was far shorter. Not that Eden was especially tall, Riley was simply a small woman, further shrinking with age.

She laughed, nervously, as she kept on. “It’s me who should be worried! Sure, the Inquisition is dangerous for all of us, especially up close and personal, but this kind of client… this trip could be just what we need!”

Riley broke away, the excitement beneath her own anxiety was beginning to show. “Think about it,” she said as she raked fingers through her salt and pepper hair. “A recommendation from an _Inquisitor_ … business would never end, Eden.”

She met her eye, fixing her gaze intently. “We might be able to expand, some ways ahead. Get more crew. Maybe even get ourselves a _real_ Colossus!”

In the silence that followed, Eden could only shrug non-committally.

“But if he don’t like us…” she eventually contributed, wilting under the Captain’s stare. “He’ll send us straight under. No more business.”

Riley nodded, fingers finally coming away from her hair. “Exactly. Which means we have to do an extraordinary job. …Emperor only knows why they chose _us_ , but they did. We _have_ to impress. Be the best damn deckhand you can be.”

The first genuine smile spread across Eden’s face. “Ain’t I always good? I always do my best.”

Finally, she picked up the mop and made to start cleaning but her superior’s hands grasped around the handle before she could do anything.

Riley’s expression turned grim as she put the mop aside, commanding Eden’s full attention. “I need you to go above and beyond for this,” she continued. “It falls on _your_ shoulders to see the Inquisitor’s every need met for the duration.”

The girl pulled a face, aghast, and cried out in indignation.

“Please,” she begged. “No, I can’t do that.”

When her Captain refused to back down, she kept on. “Why me? Why can’t Emanuel do it?”

“You know why. Emanuel needs to be up front with me in the warp. I need him to help pilot the ship. He’s not gonna have the time to devote to the job, and I need you to be at the Inquisitor’s beck and call. All other responsibilities be damned, if _they_ want something, you need to be there.”

Again Eden opened her mouth, readying another futile protest, but when Riley stared up at her, black eyes boring a hole straight through her, the words were lost before they came out. She only exhaled, defeated before she could truly begin. Any chance of keeping her distance was forfeit… she’d hoped that might be how she’d get through this trip.

“Please Eden,” Riley said quietly, offering an encouraging smile and a gentle squeeze of her hand. “Do it for me?”

The deckhand sighed again, looking away. Her gaze landed first on her Servo-skull which oversaw the exchange through empty sockets, contributing nothing, and then dropped further to the old bucket, rim cracked in a few places but still functional. The water was almost cold by now and the bubbles from the detergent nearly all gone. She’d have to start over.

“Fine, whatever you say,” she eventually said, more to the bucket than to her Captain. “How many people are we taking? Is it just the Inquisitor?”

“I don’t know yet, they didn’t want to disclose that.”

“Weird. Should’ve told you.”

“Yeah… it’s a pain for us, but prep all the rooms, just in case. They know our capacity… surely they’ll respect that.”

“Why didn’t they tell you?”

“Security purposes,” Riley answered simply, with a quick shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t think it was the Inquisitor themselves who made the booking.”

“Someone working for him?”

“Or her. But yeah.”

“Well… why ain’t they taking their own ship? Why are _we_ taking them?”

Again, Riley only shrugged. “Didn’t say. Kinda besides the point, isn’t it?”

“I guess…”

“I haven’t been told much. All I know is where we’re picking them up, and _that’s_ where we’re going now.”

“Where’s that?”

Riley flashed an excited grin. “Where else? Holy Terra.”

*

*

From outside the Colossus came the rumble of countless voices, none close enough or standing out enough to make out anything being said. From the small porthole, Eden peered out excitedly, yet timidly, at the massive starport outside. Harsh sunlight threw crisp shadows onto the dusty ground, which was lit up with a glare so bright it threatened to blind her even from her place in the dark ship.

It was only the tiniest snapshot of a planet, but she drank in everything she could see.

This wasn’t an ordinary stop, this was _holy Terra_ of all places. Her view may have been limited but she didn’t care how much or little she could see, she was grateful for even a glimpse, happy to simply watch the people outside going about their business. If that was all she’d be able to see, the opportunity was a blessing. Right now, Eden shared a planet with the Emperor of Mankind, and as far as she was concerned, no person could possibly hope for that privilege even once in their lifetime.

Yet here she was.

Right now, she shared a planet with Him, and at that thought she simply couldn’t contain her joy. Snapping her head away from the porthole, Eden dashed along the well-travelled paths to the ship’s chapel. The door opened dutifully for her and she burst in, ignoring the chairs lined up neatly in the middle of the room and dropping to her knees before the shrine.

Like every room on their cruiser the chapel was somewhat small, but more space had been allocated to _this_ one than many of the others. The lack of any real furniture - aside from the spindly chairs - made the space bigger still. But unlike the others, this one was warm, and welcoming. Unlike the others, it was a bright room, lined and trimmed in gold wherever was possible. Even the lights seemed brighter in here, but Eden had always chalked that up to her imagination.

She laughed nervously as she stared up at the effigy. It gazed back, the expression on its carved face serene. One welcoming hand reached out, upturned, and the other rested upon its sword, which was buried in the pedestal. Sebastian had carved the effigy himself, before he’d gone truly mad, and it served as the crew’s best connection to Him.

“I…” she began, trailing off.

The words didn’t come straight away, but when they did, she found she couldn’t really stop them.

“It’s an honour. To be here, this close to You. Never thought I’d _ever_ …”

She exhaled a slightly ragged breath.

“I don’t deserve this,” she kept on, bowing her head. Long hair, dark blond, fell about her hands still pressed to the floor, as she did. “I know I don’t, but I love it. I love _You_. I _adore_ You, with every part of me. Thank you for… letting us be on Your planet with You. And for what You’ve given us. Nothing happens by accident… does it? Sending us the Inquisitor… it’s all part of Your plan for us, right?”

Eden didn’t expect a response from the effigy, yet she still glanced up to it as though she did, not quite able to meet its eye. Even if there would be no response, it was only polite to pace herself when she spoke to Him.

“I won’t let You down. You won’t regret it. We’ll make the Inquisitor happy and keep them safe… after all, they’re _Your_ most trusted guys, ain’t they? And we ain’t messing up this chance You’ve given us.”

After that, she worshipped in silence for some time. It was the hand that placed lightly on her shoulder from behind that roused her - she hadn’t heard anyone come in, so the touch made her jump. Eden looked up and turned around just enough to see Emanuel smiling down at her, nervously. In Riley’s brief absence, he’d been placed in charge of things.

“You ready Eden?” he asked, his voice as soft as his touch on her. “Come meet the Inquisitor?”

The girl’s throat tightened almost painfully, and she barely managed to get the words out. “…Is it time?”

“Yeah.”

The Navigator offered his other hand to help her up and she obliged - unable to ignore the way her own hand - the flesh one, the left one - trembled more and more with each passing moment as Emanuel hauled her to her feet.

Again the redhead offered her that encouraging smile, yet it was hard for Eden to feel encouraged by that - Emanuel had the mercy of staying from their next client while they travelled, he’d get to stay holed up in the cockpit while _she_ was the one who risked spending every moment around the Inquisitor. It was easy for him to smile at her like that.

Emanuel gazed down at Eden, brown eyes shining from under the rim of the fluffy hat pulled low over his forehead. He began to steer the girl away, out the door, and under her she felt her legs begin to move despite her inner protest. “C’mon… you’ll be fine. Best get it over and done with.”

After they reached the doorway, the Navigator let go. He took the lead. “You were looking forward to going out there, weren’t you? Walking on Terra?”

At the reminder, Eden’s spirits lifted, a temporary distraction from her dread. She _had_ been looking forward to it. Her pace quickened after that - nothing would ruin that moment for her - and together the two of them walked the dark hallways at pace, eventually descending down the small ramp and out onto the bright starport’s promenade.

The girl glanced around for any sign of her Captain, or their client. That elation inside her at the knowledge that she _truly was_ treading the same ground as their Emperor, it was overshadowed entirely by the anticipation, no matter how hard Eden fought for the moment to remain sacred. It was ruined. Around them, the people carried on, ignoring them entirely. There were so many people.

“Where are they?” she asked, casting a glance over at Emanuel on her right. “You said it was time.”

The Navigator assured her with a nod of his head. “They’re coming, just hang tight.”

Not a moment after that he pointed into the crowd. “That’s them now, there’s Riley. See?”

Eden’s head snapped around. She saw Riley straight away, making her way over from one of the connecting walkways, deep in conversation. She was utterly dwarfed by the hulking figure accompanying her, a figure who seemed to take measured, slow steps just to allow the poor woman to keep up with each stride. The two guards that flanked them (Eden assumed them to be bodyguards), armoured but certainly not as thoroughly, didn’t seem to have much trouble keeping up despite the bulging knapsacks on their backs. They were probably used to following the Inquisitor around and carrying his stuff.

He was a he after all, Eden could tell that straight away - bulky power armour laden on a powerful frame - obviously male - only served to make him seem bigger still, and decorative loincloths and capes had been draped on top of _that_. The closer the party came the more she spotted that insignia, repeating itself over and over, the golden _I_ s, sparkling here, there and everywhere on his rusted grey armour - how many symbols could one man _possibly_ need to show what he did for a living? Clearly this guy needed about a hundred.

But then again, she’d never seen an Inquisitor, maybe they were all like that. Having never seen one before, he was nothing like she’d expected. That being said, what _was_ she expecting? She wasn’t sure, she thought to herself as the party reached the Colossus, and the guards stood to attention.

Clearly the man had seen battle, and a lot of battle at that if the deep scars on his face, the various augmetics on his body, and numerous dents and scrapes on that armour were anything to judge by. Inquisitor or not, Eden was truly unnerved just being in his company, as he surveyed the scene before him. Didn’t these guys spend their lives in office towers, delegating the orders? Making notes and taking calls? He looked like he did anything but office work. He looked like…

Eden had never seen one, and like so many other things she’d experienced today, she thought she never would, but she’d talked with so many clients who _had_ seen one, and they’d confirmed that _everyone_ knew straight away. He _must_ be one, he was too tall, too massive, too… _well-armoured_ to not be.

He wasn’t just an Inquisitor. He was a space marine too.

“Inquisitor, allow me to introduce you to the crew,” Riley spoke, craning her neck to look the man in the eye. Eden couldn’t help the smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth - Riley was using her _fancy voice_. She did that when the company was particularly good… it was clear she was desperate to impress, so Eden forced the smile off her face, doing her best to remain neutral as she stood to attention.

“Emanuel, our Navigator,” the Captain said, gesturing over to the redhead. “And Eden, our deckhand. Our Astropath, Sebastian- he’s inside, he prefers to stay inside. Allow me to formally welcome you aboard the Colossus.”

The Inquisitor surveyed the cruiser, almost disinterested as his gaze travelled over the dull black panels. It truly was tiny in comparison to almost every other ship docked alongside it. Indeed, when he heard the name, the man smirked a little.

Riley grinned nervously. “I see the irony isn’t lost on you, Inquisitor Drogan. Come, let’s get you and your acolytes settled, it won’t be long before we’re ready to go.”

Saying nothing, Inquisitor Drogan made his way up the ramp, followed closely by his guards- acolytes, Riley had called them. Whatever that was. Although the acolytes’ hooded heads turned towards Eden and Emanuel, still standing there - their faces lost entirely in shadow, no details of any kind to be discerned - Drogan didn’t once look their way as he passed by. Eden decided she was fine with that - the less attention the man paid her during their journey, the better.

When Riley followed, Eden made sure to get her attention as their eyes met.

_He’s a space marine?_

She mouthed the words as best she could, fixing her Captain with a wide stare.

Whether in response to her question or the attempt to lip-read, Riley shrugged openly. She continued on up the ramp, gesturing wildly for the two of them to join her before she was lost in shade and darkness.

Eden jogged, legs feeling a little too weak to carry her, but joined their clients in the small foyer.

“Your team member wasn’t able to tell me when I took the booking,” Riley continued. The door slid open for them as they made their way to the cockpit, and she grabbed her data-slate off the console. “Your destination. Where will we be taking you?”

“I need to return to Graia,” Drogan replied, his voice a deep drawl. “A Forge World, in the Segmentum Tempestus. Time is not of the essence, but I would prefer to return sooner rather than later.”

The Captain didn’t respond straight away, taking a few moments to navigate on her device. “To charter from here to the _Segmentum Tempestus_ … to Graia, that… will take us four days.”

She looked up, and when she did Eden could see how truly nervous she was. “Maybe less. Is that okay?”

Drogan still had that same disinterested look on his face. “Four days is acceptable.”

“Great, we’ll be ready to go as soon as our ship is cleared to-”

“There will be no need to wait,” the Inquisitor cut her off without hesitation. He shifted a little on his feet as though bored of the exchange. “My authority outweighs that of the Administratum. I have cleared you to leave… so you can leave.”

From her position in the foyer, Eden felt herself shrink away, an instinctive fear filling her guts. She was in awe. She’d never seen a display of power like _that_ before, clearly he was used to throwing it around.

Drogan was _everything_ she feared he would be.

“Very well.” Riley maintained her composure, shifting her attention from the data-slate to her crew. “Eden, please see Cain and Anastasia to their chambers. Get them settled in.”

She gestured respectively to the hooded figures, who turned her way. Without the harsh light on them, Eden decided they both looked young. Still older than her, probably.

“Yeah, sure. Follow me guys, the guest rooms are on the top floor. Sorry we don’t got an elevator.”

And with that, she retreated - through a side door and along a dim walkway. Away from the Inquisitor, mercifully. The two acolytes followed her wordlessly, the footfalls of three pairs of boots, the very sound of it threatening to fray Eden’s nerves as she tried to swallow back that dread. She tried to distract her thoughts and calm her mind, yet the reality of the situation seemed to scream at her, blocking out everything else.

It had begun. No going back now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Drogan isn't a marine (and he's definitely not written to be one here) but to be honest, when I played _Space Marine_ I thought he was for the longest time because he's the same size as they are. Don't see any reason the common folk wouldn't also be confused from time to time. This will come up later on.


	2. Chapter 2

Low creaking and groaning seemed to snap at Eden’s senses from every angle as the Colossus soared through the void. It might have been a tiny ship in the grand scheme of things, compared to most other cruisers, yet to her - crossing the naked metal walkways in its very bowels - it truly _felt_ colossal. It seemed so empty at times as a tiny ship was still, quite frankly, a huge thing.

As the very walls of the hallway seemed to warp around her amid another rumble from the foundations, she gripped the railing tight and rode it out. When the rumbling stopped, Eden took another moment to regain composure. Internally, she cursed herself - she was just stalling. The ship did this all the time and she never paid it any real attention. Right now, she was simply buying time, making any excuse she could make to not go through the door.

The door remained shut, from across the hallway Eden stared it down as if that would change what she had to do. For what must’ve been several more minutes she stood there, frozen, in almost complete silence before scolding herself a second time. The Inquisitor was surely expecting some kind of service at this _very moment_ , and she was wasting time. This wasn’t anything close to the exceptional job she was expected to carry out.

It _had_ to be done.

 _Just go, knock, tell him your name…_ Eden repeated to herself a final time, she’d lost count just how may times she’d given herself these orders in the last half an hour. _Go, knock, tell him your name, find out what he wants for lunch._ It wouldn’t be _that_ bad.

The girl’s pounding heart was the only sound to be heard in the hallway - at least, it seemed deafening to her - until she approached the metal door and placed her ear to the cold surface. Though faint, she could hear the Inquisitor’s drawl, continuous, taking pause every now and again only to start back up a couple of seconds later. There didn’t seem to be any opportunity to enter without interrupting him and whoever he was talking to.

Come to think of it, Eden thought to herself - still listening out for an opening - had she seen either of the acolytes go in after him? They’d seemed happy enough to start unpacking straight away when she saw them to their respective chambers. Was Drogan talking to himself? He could’ve been praying, but she guessed he’d go down to the chapel to pray. Had anyone even told him where the chapel _was?_

God… there was still so much to do! And she was _still wasting time!_

Steeling herself, she couldn’t help but cringe a little as she rapped loudly on the door.

The Inquisitor’s monologue stopped instantly.

“Enter.”

He said _this_ loudly. Clearly. It was definitely for her.

Though she forced herself to open her eyes, Eden’s gaze dropped to the ground as she hit the button to open the door. She took a tentative step forward when it slid open, but didn’t go any further than the door frame. When she stole a glance up, she saw that Drogan was indeed alone, but when she spotted the data-slate in his metal hand, she guessed he’d been in the middle of a call. Or dictating.

Work never stopped, she supposed, even while an Inquisitor travelled.

Still, she didn’t look up at him. Her gaze fixed resolutely on the floor once again.

“Um… hello.”

As the words spilled from her mouth, she wished for the floor to swallow her up. She wished for the Inquisitor to draw the weapon that hung threateningly from his belt, and shoot her where she stood. But despite the longing for death, greater and greater with each passing moment, she kept on. It couldn’t get any worse than this. Somehow, that was a reassuring thought.

“Hello… I’m Eden. I do all the cleaning and some of the repairs. And other stuff. I’m here to make sure you have everything you need- you want… for the whole trip.”

She allowed herself to lift her gaze just a little. Even though she dared not look Drogan in the eye, she could see the way he stared her down. Threatening. God, he really was tall.

“If you want anything… anything at all…”

With a trembling hand she reached into her left pants pocket, drawing out a scrap of paper. Head still bowed, she handed it over.

“That’s the extension for my skull,” she continued, indicating the device that hovered a couple of feet behind her every step. “It’s always with me. There’s a vox on the wall…”

Eden pointed to the receiver, and Drogan’s own gaze followed.

“Punch in my extension and you’ll get through to me, wherever I am. Whatever I’m doing. I’ll come running, I promise.”

The Inquisitor said nothing in response. That same scrutiny Eden had felt the moment she’d walked in, it weighed down on her now, pressing on her throat and chest and making each breath come uneasy. Still she didn’t look up.

“I… um, I came to find out what you want for lunch. We got _real_ food for the guests. Mostly. You don’t got to have the biscuit bars, you can have something good.”

“I do not eat meat,” Drogan said flatly. “Synthetic or otherwise.”

“Um… that’s fine.”

The hand that held onto her own data-slate trembled violently, making it hard to type anything at all, but somehow she managed to make a note. When she was done, Eden lifted her gaze to the golden _I_ fixed in the middle of the Inquisitor’s armour, winged, and gleaming even in the meagre light. _Anything_ to focus on.

“We don’t got a cook,” she added. “Sorry. I cook for all our guests. We’re a really small company, it’s just the four of us… we don’t got the pay for a cook yet.”

“I understand,” Drogan replied.

“...Is that okay?”

“It is fine, Miss Ironside. Whatever you can provide will be adequate.”

“Great… I’m just gonna…”

The girl exhaled a ragged breath.

“...Gonna go make it. I gotta go check in with your guards too. …See you in a little while, sir.”

Bowing her head again, more this time out of a polite respect than _pure_ nerves, Eden retreated from the room, slamming her right hand on the button far harder than she’d intended - metal hitting metal with a harsh clang that made her jump a little - and the door shut behind her. She leaned against the cold wall for a moment, forehead pressed against the hard surface, and groaned under her breath. That couldn’t have possibly gone any worse.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true, she considered, as she fought against the urge to sink to the floor and instead made her way along the walkway. She was still alive. Evidently she’d done a good enough job for Drogan to spare her.

But she couldn’t help but wonder, as her footfalls echoed around her, how he already knew her surname. She guessed Riley must’ve told him at some stage, and that made her whole introduction somewhat redundant… apart from the fact that she’d _needed_ to take his lunch order-

Eden stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t even _asked_ him what he wanted! And he _still_ didn’t know where the chapel was!

This was a nightmare, unfolding before her very eyes. The deckhand groaned audibly, throwing herself onto the door as she came upon it. She supposed she could just tell his acolyte how to get to the chapel, and he’d surely relay the message. She scrabbled about on the wall for the button, and once she felt it, pressed it down. As the door opened, she supported herself, significantly less terrified to make her way into the room and look upon the acolyte - the male. Cain, that’s what Riley had said he was called.

Cain sat upright on the bed, one leg stretched out across the length of it, and the other drawn up to his chest. The tan hood that had previously covered his face now hung about his upper body, revealing raven hair, slightly curled, that almost reached his shoulders. A couple of long scars crossed his cheek but they were nowhere near as disfiguring as the ones his master sported. He looked up when Eden came into his line of sight but continued what he was doing without really looking - Eden’s attention was commanded entirely by the weapon he wore on his left hand. A leather glove, armoured panels had been bolted on haphazardly in places but each finger and thumb was tipped with a menacing blade. To the girl’s eye each cruel claw looked about four inches long. Surely that wasn’t a weapon. Much more likely it was some kind of torture device.

Even more surely, she hoped it wasn’t intended for _her_.

By the warm smile on the man’s face and the lazy scrape of whatever tool he held in his other hand and used to sharpen it, she guessed it wasn’t. Maybe he was just making use of the time by seeing to his equipment.

“Sorry to disturb you,” she began, noticing the words came much easier in Cain’s presence than in Drogan’s. “I need to know what you want for lunch.”

As before, she added. “We don’t got the pay for a cook, I’m sorry. I cook everything. I hope that’s okay.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Cain replied, offering a slow, indifferent sweep of his hands.

“Um… what would you like?”

Again Cain shrugged. “Whatever Drogan is having will be good. Anastasia will have the same, I think she’s busy right now so I’d leave her be if I were you.”

“None of you eat meat?”

“I do. Ana does. Drogan doesn’t. I just didn’t wanna make you cook twice, I guess.”

For the first time in a while, Eden couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, but… we _have_ meat if you want it. Some of it might not be real though.”

“Maybe later.” Cain set down his tool, swung his legs off the bed and carefully pulled the claw off his left hand. “For now I’ll just have the same as my master.”

As he looked at her face he grinned. “You look terrified,” he added. He got to his feet, almost a foot taller than Eden yet still not as tall as his master. “Why’s that? Can I put your mind at ease?”

Cain’s brown eyes settled on her purple for a long time, like he was trying to figure out whether what he was seeing was really the case. Eden was used to that.

“Is it Drogan?” Cain asked, apparently feeling no need to question the girl’s appearance, and keeping on. “I can imagine he’s quite frightening if you haven’t-”

“It’s not _that_ ,” Eden cut him off, looking away to decide exactly how she _did_ feel. “Not _just_ that. It’s… you’re _Inquisitors_.”

“Yeah.” The man nodded knowingly. “Thought it might be that. Civilians tend to be… _nervous_ around us.”

He fixed her gaze intently. For the first time he looked serious, but not in a way Eden found to be threatening. “I know how you guys think about us. We’re not here to kill you. All we want is to make passage to our base, and for reasons he’s decided not to reveal to us, Drogan chose you guys for that instead of one of our own ships.”

“Um…”

“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,” he kept on. “And you can’t hide _anything_ from him.”

Despite her certainty that she indeed had _nothing to hide_ , that didn’t ease her mind one bit. If anything, it only made her more afraid. “How long have you guys been working together?”

Cain seemed to be thrown by the question, needing a little time to think about it. “I dunno… I’ve been travelling with Drogan about… forty-one years? Maybe more.”

Eden stared. She didn’t know what to ask first. “How… how old _are_ you?”

“Sixty-three.” The acolyte chuckled a little as though he could see the dissonance waging war in the girl’s head through her very expression, but did his best to explain. “We’re all… older than we look. Me and Ana, we’re a little more trusted than the others, I think we’ve proven ourselves useful in our different ways. So we get to live a long time.”

He shrugged as though he didn’t quite understand it himself. “Ana’s a little younger than me. No one knows _how_ old Drogan is. Don’t think even _he_ knows any more.”

“If you had to guess? If it’s okay for me to ask.”

Another small shrug, and a pause. “Dunno. He’s been around _hundreds_ of years, I think.”

At the look on Eden’s face, he added. “Try not to let him scare you though. Trust me, he has no interest in the goings-on of civilians. He just wants to get back to base.”

“Um… I’ll try,” she replied, starting to back away, not even beginning to attempt processing everything she’d just been told. “I need to go make food. I’ll be back soon.”

With that, Eden retreated, not looking back and not stopping until she reached the kitchen, down in the lower levels of the cruiser. She knelt down and surveyed the recipe books they had at their disposal - all five of them - as she tried to put away the feeling there was something she’d forgotten to do. Grabbing a book almost at random, she flicked through to the vegetarian section, turning pages in the hope of finding something that _might_ be good enough for an Inquisitor. She could cook pretty much anything as long as she had the ingredients, and of course, a recipe to follow - having been taught to read sure paid off at times like this. Her attention settled on a simple chick pea salad - now she had notice she’d be able to make something much more interesting in time for dinner, but for now, this might just be okay.

She put the book down and hurried across the room to the pantry, opening the door and rifling through the various jars, cans and liquids. She pushed a few aside and grabbed a can. They had chick peas. Real ones too. The girl took them back to the counter and opened the refrigerator - she knew for a fact they didn’t keep real greens on the ship, they just didn’t keep for long enough. They had synthetic ones though… she knelt down and sifted through the various bags. No spinach. She supposed she’d have to improvise.

Eden grabbed what she could find, stood, and shut the refrigerator door. For a moment she stayed in place, and then screamed into the bags of synthetic leaves when she remembered what it was she’d forgotten.

She _still_ hadn’t told them where the chapel was.

*

*

Eden allowed a couple of hours to pass before paying Drogan another visit. He’d need time to eat, after all, and he definitely didn’t need her checking in on him every half an hour, he was surely a busy man even while travelling. If he wanted anything he’d call for her.

Or at least she hoped he would. So far Eden had made an acceptable salad, taken that up to their three guests, and busied herself with small tasks, counting down the minutes until she once again climbed the stairwell to the top level of the ship. When she reached the Inquisitor’s door, she checked the panel. Green light - he hadn’t locked the door from inside. Taking that as her cue and trying her best to do what Cain had asked (as though not being frightened of Drogan was _that fucking easy_ ), Eden rapped on the door.

“Enter.”

The girl did as instructed, again nervously avoiding the Inquisitor’s eye. He sat on the side of his bed as though expecting her company, data-slate off to one side. As she made her way into the room with her Servo-skull trailing behind, he followed her every move.

“Sorry sir, I just…” she mumbled, probably too quiet for the Inquisitor to even hear. “Came to get the stuff…”

She made a dash for the small table and scooped up the cutlery and bowl - taking some comfort in the fact that the bowl was empty - and then turned to leave, she’d bothered him enough-

“Miss Ironside.”

Eden froze in place. Not a single muscle dared move. He put her name to her, not questioningly, but as a demand. He _demanded_ her attention, and she couldn’t help but give it.

Her voice was little more than a pathetic squeak. “Y--yes sir?”

Was that how she was _supposed_ to address him? She didn’t know how to address an Inquisitor!

Drogan stood, heavy footfalls muffled and lost entirely in the carpet as he made his way over in just a couple of strides. He was so close. She didn’t dare move.

Oh God. This was it, this was how she would die.

She didn’t want to die.

“Look at me.”

Oh, _God_.

Flesh hand, trembling violently, and metal hand, surprisingly-still, gripped hard onto the bowl - any harder and her right hand risked cracking it. All feeling left her limbs- no, her whole body, as she tried to swallow down the growing lump in her throat, and after what felt like a lifetime, finally did as commanded and met the Inquisitor’s eye.

Disfigurements aside, there was something tired about his features yet still they shone with an impossible energy. Despite everything he was still human- as human as a space marine _was_ , anyway, Eden thought to herself as she stared up at him, her eyes wide in terror. Somewhere in the distance that was her past life, she heard the faint clatter of cutlery and crockery falling to the floor, vaguely aware of the utensils hitting her boots, as she stared death in the face.

His eyes were blue, and they were bright. So very bright. They seemed to stand out against the ferocity that was absolutely everything else about him. As Drogan inspected her, the girl decided - having not actually looked him in the eye before now - that he was actually kind of handsome. _Maybe_ handsome, to whatever woman was capable of looking past, well… _everything_ , and seeing only what remained of him.

The Inquisitor was so close she could smell whatever aftershave was on him. Few clients carried that, and it stood out to her. Eden remembered Cain’s words, that none of them were interested in the average civilian and their average life, and wondered for a moment what Drogan was so interested in, just _why_ he was staring her down so intently. Her heart sank when she realised.

“Alexandria’s Genesis.” Drogan tasted the words and they fell elegantly off his tongue.

Eden didn’t break his gaze, and a silence began to grow between the two before she realised she was expected to answer.

“Mmhm.”

It was all she could get out. Any moment now she would pass out. Maybe it would be better that way than realising the nature of her death as it happened. Her back collided with the bathroom door - she hadn’t noticed her legs had been moving her back, all the while Drogan advanced to match her retreat. He towered over her.

“Not even one in a trillion exhibits the condition,” the Inquisitor kept on, eyes still fixed on hers. It was even longer before he spoke again. “Entire generations of men come and go, and the Genesis is not seen.”

“Mmhm… yeah.” Eden struggled for each breath, and fought back tears of pure stress. “It’s really rare.”

The more the deckhand studied his features, as best she could in her terror, the more she realised that look on his face to be of _interest_ rather than of threat. Perhaps this meant he would spare her life… wait until the ship landed on the Forge World before taking her away like the others.

“I had never hoped to see the condition personally,” he drawled. “Most believe it to be a _myth_ , it is so rare. Indeed, I thought that to be true. Until now.”

“Would…” the girl’s voice wavered dramatically. She pressed further against the door, with nowhere to go. “Would… would you… like some recaf? I’m-- just about to make up a batch.”

Drogan still loomed over her, still studying her with that same abject fascination. Eden could still smell his aftershave.

He didn’t move.

“Black, please. No sweetener.”

Suddenly it was all over. The Inquisitor stood to full height and turned away, picking up his data-slate from the bed. And for a few moments, all Eden could do was stand in place, in utter shock. She’d… gotten _out of that? Alive?_

She raked her fingers though her long hair as though that might confirm it. Satisfied that she had indeed escaped that encounter unharmed, somehow, she squatted down on legs that felt like jelly and supported her just as well at that moment, and gathered the cutlery, and the shards of the bowl that had evidently given under her augmetic hand.

The deckhand stood. “I’m… making a gratin for dinner,” she added quietly. “Is that okay with you?”

“It will be acceptable, Miss Ironside.”

She guessed ‘acceptable’ was the best she would get from Drogan for the entire trip. She supposed it was much better than ‘shit’, ‘make it again’, or ‘I’m going to have to kill you, Miss Ironside’. She liked ‘acceptable’.

“And you… you’ll call my skull if there’s anything you need?”

“Of course.”

“...Is there anything else-- at all I can get you?”

“Not at the moment, thank you.”

“Um... the chapel's on the same floor as the cockpit,” Eden added. “If you're looking at the cockpit from the foyer go right and keep on. It's at the end next to the living room.”

“Your Captain informed me of this some hours ago... but your assistance is appreciated.”

The Inquisitor lowered his head to whatever he was reading on the data-slate, and that was Eden’s cue to leave. The deckhand hurried from the room and hit the button as soon as she was out, the door mercifully sliding shut and consolidating everything that had just happened in there, to the past. It helped the girl to do that, anyway. The groaning hallway outside was the next sliver in the existence that she still clung to - for the time being, at least.

Eden turned around, making for Cain’s chamber before having to accept her legs were way too weak to carry her. She staggered to the railing and allowed herself to slide down, ass hitting the metal grating underfoot with a jarring impact. As she sat there, one of the utensils slipped from her still-trembling hand, hitting the walkway with a clatter. She watched numbly as the fork bounced a little from its point of impact, not able to catch it in time before it slipped through the grating, into the abyss beneath.

She supposed she’d find it some years down the line while doing maintenance, but for now, it was lost for good.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which bacon is assumed to still be a thing in some form or another.

Eden’s thinking was that if she cooked up the bacon in advance, the two acolytes might not decline in the hope of sparing her the effort. That was the plan, anyway, she thought to herself as she scooped up the last of the strips from the frying pan and dropped them into a long dish with the others. As she did, the girl couldn’t help but smell her handiwork deeply - God that stuff _always_ smelled good. Not all of it was real, she knew that, but even the synthetic stuff smelled like heaven.

She put aside her longing and broke away. She turned off the stove, picked up the frying pan and tossed it in the sink. After turning on the water she grabbed the spatula and chucked that in too. She’d clean up everything at once when breakfast was done.

Aboard the ship she cooked the food, but no matter how much of a temptation it was, it wasn’t hers to eat. Not until business picked up, anyway. The real food was expensive, they could only justify giving it to the guests and sometimes even the guests were only given ship’s rations. _It all came down to expectations_ , that’s what Riley had told her when she first came aboard the Colossus. And _that_ was why it had been made perfectly clear that no expense was to be spared on this trip.

Of course, Eden thought to herself - as she squatted down to a unit, opened it up, and picked out a biscuit bar for herself - neither of the acolytes might actually like bacon in the first place. That was fine. She reasoned that if Cain nor Anastasia was interested, she would take it up for Sebastian and Emanuel. Today was the day they’d be making the jump into the warp, after all - the two men would surely need the energy. She couldn’t imagine the magnitude of what they had to do, what they had to go through each time they journeyed through that terrible place, but after each trip, they looked exhausted.

It would help them to no end, to bring on more people just to give the guys a period of respite. They worked tirelessly, and it seemed when each client or cargo was seen to their destination, the men took no pause. The ship was on its way to the next client as soon as it was cleared. It hardly seemed like the two of them had an easy time.

Still, it was surely much better than living on one of the worlds down below. Eden certainly knew that to be true for herself. As she gnawed on her biscuit bar she found herself to crave the meat less and less with each second - they were good for that. The deckhand made to grab her data-slate, she needed to check the time - she couldn’t help but tense when her hand slammed on the counter and after a few moments of absent-minded scrabbling, came upon nothing.

 _It was right here…_ she mused, growing only more concerned when she picked up the spatula. She raised it to eye level, frowning deeply at the utensil as though it was personally responsible for her predicament. She’d put _this_ in the sink to be cleaned.

“ _Fuck_.”

Eden rushed over. Sure enough, lying on top of the various cups, mugs and pans, and floating leisurely in a thorough bath of steaming, scalding water was her data-slate. The deckhand promptly threw her head back against the wall and screamed for what must’ve been an age.

Stuff like this was bound to happen - she was preoccupied with the sheer magnitude of her task, their guests were terrifying! They were always on her mind! It was impossible to keep her mind _on_ her task when all she could think about was how much she was dreading going back up there!

That, at least, was the only way she could justify how she’d been acting lately.

Eden rescued the sodden device from its bath and tried to switch it on. Nothing. No life whatsoever. _That_ was to be expected. She sighed. Nothing could be done right now, she was running out of time and there was work to do. With no other alternative she rummaged in a drawer, pulling out a pencil and an old, ratty ledger. Quickly she flicked through the bent and torn pages until finding a couple that were blank. This would have to do.

Riley was going to kill her long before Drogan ever could.

By the time she scaled the levels to the very top and offered a rushed but tentative knock to the acolyte’s door, Eden was panting. As the voice inside welcomed her into the chamber, she raised her knuckles to her forehead in a bid to wipe off the sweat she could feel pricking at her skin, but still hit the button to let her in.

Anastasia was already up and dressed - like Cain she’d dispensed with the cloak and hood that had hidden her face on arrival. And, like Cain, she didn’t look anywhere close to the age Eden knew her to be. The acolyte barely seemed older than Eden herself, and her every move was that of a much younger woman. As with the men, the exposed areas were marred by a deep scar here and there or what looked like a long-healed burn - it would seem they _all_ saw battle at one point or another. Even if it was just a little.

That was understandable, seeing as these were the Inquisitor’s personal guard. Eden wondered for a moment just how long people like her, and Drogan, were expected to go on for - if the conflict on the worlds below didn’t take them out first - before even attempting to speak.

“Hey Eden,” the acolyte said, sleepiness still evident in her voice. She yawned openly. “You doing recaf soon?”

“Yeah, of course,” Eden replied, readying her ledger. “I just didn’t remember how you had it.”

Anastasia didn’t pay much attention to the deckhand as she set about pulling a book of her own out of a satchel. “White, no sweetener. Thanks.”

“Sure thing.” She felt no less tense in Anastasia’s presence. The acolyte’s words were always polite and like Cain, she’d attempted to offer reassurance to the visibly-terrified deckhand but there was just something in the way she spoke and the way she moved that put Eden on edge. She supposed she could’ve just been an awkward person, socially, but it wasn’t like that. More and more was Eden sure she simply wasn’t meant to feel welcome in Anastasia’s company.

Not that she’d come up here to make friends, anyway - she had a job to do and she’d see it done. She made a note.

“I’m getting breakfast ready,” she kept on. “I made bacon, if you wanted any?”

She didn’t expect the acolyte to visibly perk up at that. Green eyes - very bright, almond eyes - met her own. “Serious?”

“Um… yeah. We got crispy bits and we got bits that ain’t. We got eggs and toast - I can fry some bread up if you like.”

Anastasia was practically salivating. Eden had her full attention. “And mushrooms?”

“Mmhm!”

“All that please,” the acolyte said enthusiastically. She offered an uncommon smile. “And fry the bread. We never usually eat this well, we just have rations at the base. Most of the time.”

Despite Eden’s unease throughout the encounter, that actually sparked some small feeling of optimism about the whole situation. Surely they were doing _something_ right. Maybe their guests would leave satisfied with the experience. _Then_ they’d get their recommendation.

“I bet you’re making the most of it, huh?” she offered, a small smile beginning to spread across her face as she made a quick note to bring the woman something of everything. “I’m glad we can do that for you. Can I get anything else for you?”

Anastasia deliberated for a moment, opening the massive text and setting it on the small table with a thud that Eden felt through the ground. “If you’ve got a couple more pillows that would be _great_.”

“You didn’t sleep okay?”

The older shrugged. “Yeah I slept fine, just I’m used to more. I’ll be fine with that.”

Eden began to back away as she wrote a final time. “We got a couple rooms spare right now, I’ll go get some after I’ve been to see Cain and… your boss.”

As the deckhand retreated, Anastasia said nothing but offered a thumbs-up, lithe yet muscular arm outstretched as she fully engrossed herself in whatever it was she was reading, not looking back up. If anything, Eden’s spirits were lifted as she hit the button to shut the door, and she gripped her ledger tight as she crossed the naked walkway, the fall of her boots joining the background groaning of the ship.

She knocked on the Inquisitor’s door, trying to keep hold of that optimism.

“Enter.”

Before going in she let out a small sigh. Optimistic, maybe, yet Drogan seemed to have a way of inspiring terror in her with every word.

She did as told - he too was awake, and dressed. In… in full armour, Eden couldn’t help but notice as she offered a polite bow of her head. Did he put that on every single day? And take it off every night? How long did _that_ take? Surely he hadn’t slept in it, that would be impossible. Not to mention it seemed like it would be quite painful. He’d at least taken off the thing that had been on his back the previous day, and it now sat propped up against the wall - yet another of those golden _I_ s glaring at her from across the room - but those pauldrons, comically oversized, he was still wearing those.

Drogan was seated at the small table, and he was writing something- or, Eden assumed he was writing something on a small tablet. Despite that, he gave the girl his full attention as soon as she came in, looking over and leaving the tablet, and whatever he was writing on it, idle. For whatever reason he got to his feet as Eden approached, whether out of politeness she couldn’t be sure.

“Good morning sir,” she began, feeling just a little braver than she had the previous day. “Did you sleep well?”

Maybe she was more curious about the armour situation than she realised, it seemed impossible not to ask it straight away. Still, Drogan seemed unfazed by the questioning, raising his head a little in thought.

“I cannot complain.”

Not exactly a yes or a no, Eden decided she might just have to put her curiosity away for the time being. Again she readied her ledger. “I’m getting breakfast ready, just wanted to know what you wanted. You have recaf black, yeah?”

“That is correct.”

“We got a lot of stuff that don’t got meat in it,” the deckhand carried on as she wrote, and began to list off the options one by one on her fingers and thumb. “I can do you something fried without the meat, or some scrambled eggs maybe… can do them on toast-”

“That will be fine.”

Eden was a little taken-aback, not having expected to come upon the right option so quickly. Or perhaps he just wanted her to shut up. “Um… you sure? We got pretty much everything you could want, sir, we got cereals too-”

“Scrambled eggs on toast will be fine, Miss Ironside,” he repeated, beginning to move. Tattered cape trailed just a little behind each step as he stalked around the girl who remained rooted to the spot, again on the verge of losing her composure and reverting to the terrified mess the Inquisitor seemed to be so good at making out of her. “Brown bread if you have it, please.”

“Mmhm… no problem…”

Eden could practically feel Drogan’s breath on the nape of her neck as she wrote it down. He’d stopped stalking, she could tell by the small sounds of his boots on the carpet and the way she could _feel_ his eyes burning a hole in the back of her head, that he was where he wanted to be.

She could ignore it no longer, mustering the words, as politely as she could possibly make them. “Are-- is everything okay sir?”

No answer. 

_Oh God…_

Eden sensed him lean in just a little closer, she really _could_ feel his breath on the back of-

“You can write.”

Like so much that had come before now, what he said was a question put to her as a demand for answers. But it wasn’t the _worst_ thing an Inquisitor could possibly ask her. He was only reading her ledger. Eden couldn’t help the small sigh of relief that passed her lips. She nodded her head quickly. “Yeah.”

“Which means you can read.” Each word came out more severe, more slowly, more ominous, than the last.

Still, Eden had nothing to hide and therefore, nothing to fear. That was, if Cain could be trusted when he’d said she had nothing to fear. “Yeah.”

Behind her, Drogan straightened up, following his previous pattern of stalking in reverse and coming to stand somewhere in her current line of sight. “Where did _you_ learn to read and write?”

“Um… sorry?”

“You are common folk, Miss Ironside,” Drogan elaborated, still staring her down. “In my experience, common folk will sooner draw _pictures_ of their orders than write real notes. They do not tend to learn how.”

She didn’t understand. Was she in trouble?

“It was a long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Um… it was after I got moved to the research site- they were doing the Genesis and they wanted all the people they could get. Which… it wasn’t a lot of people. I was about thirteen. The scientists wanted me to know how to read so they could tell me what they were gonna be doing without… having to keep _telling_ me. They said it’d be easier for me to remember everything and I could go back and look at it whenever I wanted and not be on _their_ asses about it if I forgot. So… they taught me.”

The Inquisitor didn’t respond straight away.

 _Fuck… did I just say_ ass _to an_ Inquisitor?

There was no coming back from that.

“You participated in a study on the Genesis?” Drogan repeated.

“I… I still do. Sometimes.”

Eden shrugged, looking away guiltily despite her certainty she hadn’t done anything _wrong_. “When you got a thing as rare as the Genesis… they want you coming back your whole life.”

Tentatively she looked up and met the Inquisitor’s bright eyes, still boring into her own. “That’s where I got my arm.”

She raised her metal arm as though that answered everything, but under his constant stare she couldn’t help but wilt on the spot. “That’s-- I ain’t done nothing bad, right? I swear I wouldn’t have done nothing I knew was bad, I-”

“You are at full liberty to pursue a basic education,” Drogan cut her off a second time, and resumed stalking, pacing around the girl like he was inspecting her - in a strange way she was getting used to this. “If you are offered one. And to take part in research studies as you please. You will have to forgive me when I pry the way I do… there is far more to you than meets the eye.”

Right in front of her, he stopped, and resumed staring into hers. His drawl was now barely more than a low whisper, yet it still cut straight through the girl.

“And given what meets the eye that is quite the understatement, Miss Ironside.”

She forced herself to keep looking up at him despite her every instinct telling her otherwise - she survived the last time he did this, there was every chance she’d survive again. “You, um… you can just call me Eden if you like.”

And simply because it didn’t seem the politest thing she could’ve said under those circumstances, she offered- no, forced, a small smile as she did.

Drogan’s dark eyebrows - and a couple of the massive scars covering the remains of that side of his head - knitted together in the tiniest of frowns. It seemed an age before he spoke.

“Very well… Eden.”

He didn’t stop staring her down and the two lapsed into an excruciating silence. The staring was to be expected, Eden thought to herself, if the Inquisitor truly was _that interested_ in her condition. If what he’d said the day before was to be believed, maybe he still couldn’t quite accept she really was the way she was. Maybe that was why she let him stare, despite how much it frightened her just to have to look at him.

“I gotta get on with breakfast. …Sorry. I’ll bring you up the recaf and the rest when it’s done, okay?”

“I look forward to it, Eden.”

Well _that_ was certainly a step up from ‘acceptable’, the deckhand thought as she excused herself from the room. That didn’t mean things were how they ought to be, though. For one, she’d already been behind schedule when she came in and _that_ \- whatever _that_ all was, anyway, had only made things worse. She hadn’t even seen to Cain yet.

She made her way to the final chamber. Whatever it was all about, she supposed the only thing that really mattered was that Drogan seemed happy with what she was doing. _That_ , was all that mattered. All the same… while she was able to accept she wasn’t in any _immediate_ danger from the Inquisition, the way he was acting towards her now was little better than if she was.

Despite her best efforts to avoid this very situation at _all costs_ , she now had the Inquisitor’s full attention.

*

*

Maintenance around the Colossus was hard work, physically speaking. Far less arduous than anything she’d had to do down in the mines of her homeworld, but that was such a long time ago now - Eden simply wasn’t used to that kind of labour any more.

The deckhand turned the knob upwards, and the cascade upon her came to a halt. She always wanted a shower after doing maintenance - if running up and down the levels for hours each day, wrenching panels off the walls, and testing the limits of just how much of a human being could fit into compartments that weren’t designed to house one didn’t leave a reliable layer of slime and sweat over every inch of her skin, the grime from all the moving parts would sure do the trick. Now the evening had come and all their guests had been fed, Eden could finally take the time to clean it all away.

She wrung out her hair as much as she could before stepping out of the tray and wrapping a towel around her torso. Maintenance wasn’t so bad - all she really had to do was the hauling and carrying. Her augmetic did the bulk of the work - all she had to do was activate the multi-tool, plug it in, run a diagnostic and then run a fix - if needed. Normally, that would be enough - or it would at least tell her what it was she needed to do to fix the problem. And Eden was nothing if not durable as a result of her condition - electric shocks that might prove lethal to most people seemed to be little more than an annoyance to her. She wasn’t really sure why that was, and didn’t remember how she came to learn it in the first place - not that she especially cared to. However it did mean she could get her hands dirty. That, in addition to her being something of a fast learner meant she had the hang of most basic duties within the first few months of her job.

Despite all this, some faults were simply beyond her ability to repair, or beyond the resources they had at the time. Services constantly had to be traded for the labour or resources they needed - it was just another reality of their business which made running the ship as costly as it was.

Having Drogan around while she worked was unnerving, to say the least. All three of their guests now seemed to be comfortable leaving their allocated chambers and making full use of the (fairly limited) facilities aboard the Colossus. The acolytes spent most of their time in the communal room - mostly just talking together, but Eden saw them playing a board game at one point. There wasn’t much to do in the communal room, not at that point in time - Riley often talked about getting a couple of entertainment systems in there but it seemed like each time they had the chance to put funds aside for that purpose, something much more pressing came along and demanded whatever it was they’d saved up. For whatever reason, it just hadn’t yet happened.

The Inquisitor, however, seemed happy to explore the cruiser at length since few areas were truly off-limits to guests in the first place, and his own authority seemed to extend that freedom even further - technically speaking even the private chambers that the crew called their own were his to inspect if he felt the need to. He hadn’t done _that_ , but Eden had heard the footfalls behind her that were far heavier than those of any of her co-workers, and felt that telltale pressure on the back of her neck as she worked. No matter how much she tried to keep her mind on her task, it was hard to concentrate, hard to _act normal_ when _he_ was watching her do it.

Thankfully, that was over now. Eden dried herself off and chucked her towel back across its rack to dry, lazily slamming her hand on the button to open the bathroom door.

“ _Eden_.”

Upon hearing the Inquisitor, she screamed. Still completely naked, she covered what she could on instinct alone, recoiling from the voice. She dared look up - he wasn’t there. Sinking back behind the door frame, Eden scanned the bedroom beyond and saw no one. She was alone, save for the Servo-skull that drifted into her line of sight in a bid to finally get her attention.

She… hadn’t been expecting it. This was the first time Drogan had actually called for her.

“Yes, sir?” she spoke to the empty skull. “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. …Is there anything you need?”

“ _If your Captain permits it, I would like you to bring me a bottle of wine_.”

She already knew the answer to that. “Riley’s told me you can have whatever you want. It might not be good wine but I’ll get you the best one we got. What kind?”

“ _Red, please. Bring two glasses_.”

And with that, the line of communication was severed, background noise from the vox falling silent along with the Inquisitor’s voice. Eden wasted no time. Not taking the time to dry her hair even a little bit, she hurried out into the bedroom and grabbed a pair of leggings and a vest from the big pile of clothing on her floor, dressing as quickly as she could before pulling on her boots and barreling out of the room without looking back.

When she returned to the top level, bottle of red in one hand and two glasses held precariously by their stems in the other, the deckhand was gasping for breath. With no hands free Eden stood on tiptoe and shoved her whole metal shoulder against the wall to open the stairwell door. As she jogged along the walkway she finally allowed herself thoughts - about what she’d been asked to do. Drogan had asked for two glasses, which obviously meant he’d be drinking with _one_ of his acolytes. Which begged the question of which was going to be left out.

Eden looked up as she reached the Inquisitor’s chamber. Green light, of course - he was expecting her to come. She rapped excitedly on the door.

“Enter.”

It was always possible, she thought as she let herself in, that one of them was teetotal. She bowed her head politely as she approached the Inquisitor - he was _still_ wearing the armour. Now Eden was sure he slept in it.

“Here sir…” she said as she set the glasses down on the table, and then handed over the bottle.

As she looked up she added, “It ain’t the best wine ever, but it’s the best we got. Sorry.”

“Eden, rest assured this is perfectly adequate.” Drogan took a couple of steps towards the table, unscrewed the bottle’s cap and carefully filled the two glasses.

“I’ll leave you to it,” the deckhand said, stepping back a little and readying herself to leave the room. “Can I get you anything else before I go?”

Some amusement crossed Drogan’s features as he looked up from the table and over to her, watching her back further towards the door. There was a small clink as he took one of the glasses in his augmetic hand.

“I do not want you to leave,” he said as though surprised she was even considering it.

Taking that as a command to stay right where she was, the girl froze in place. “What?”

“Did you not question why I asked for _two_ glasses? I wish for _you_ to take the other.”

Again it hit her. Icy cold dread, creeping up her spine and into her fingers. “I… I thought it was for one of your guards, I- why…”

The tiniest smirk pulled at the Inquisitor’s lip. He lifted his glass and took the first, curious sip, not taking his bright eyes off her. “I am left with no choice but to admit the truth,” he began. “You fascinate me, Eden Ironside. You truly are an enigma. It seems with each question, of mine… each revelation of yours… I am only scratching the surface. I believe there is much still to be told.”

Drogan set the bottle on his nightstand and sat down on the edge of the bed. “And that is why I desire a more _focused_ conversation.”

He gestured lazily towards the lone glass perched on the small table, and to Eden it seemed a compulsion to go back over there. One she couldn’t ignore. There was no denying him, she knew that. No matter how politely he made his demands, they were still demands, at the end of the day. She took the glass by its stem.

“Drink with me, Eden.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Drogan has like, almost no back story. There's stuff we know and stuff we can speculate from that (I'll get into that later on) but I did a run of the game just to scout out any information about him that I could and what I found filled one A5 page of my notebook (like, I'm not gonna lie I think he's fucking hot, yeah, but a huge reason I'm attracted to him is because he's so _interesting_ as a person. I just really wanna know more).
> 
> Anyway this big blank space has led to me coming up with my own version of a back story for him, filling in some of these gaps and trying to imagine where he might have come from and how he might've gotten to the places he's gotten to, etc. So that is a thing that is happening. I'm taking _artistic liberty_ on that but my main goal is staying as true to who he is (or who he seems to be) as I possibly can.
> 
> While on that note, he's probably the trickiest character I've ever written about before. In game we see him in that one context, talking about classified shit with the Ultramarines and doing serious things and kicking ass and we never see him in this kind of environment. It's been a challenge imagining what he would say and how he'd say it but, I'm trying my best to get him right.

Every so often, Eden would find herself in something of a peculiar situation on the journey of her life, and at times like those she’d find herself looking back. At the decisions she’d made that had led her to where she was now. Being moved out of the slums of her homeworld, that was definitely one of them. Meeting Riley was a matter of pure chance - the Captain had come to pick up a client, or cargo, Eden couldn’t remember now which it was, and the two had gotten talking at the research site while Riley waited, and Eden carried out her labour.

What decisions she had made, Eden knew right away. She’d made no decisions, not at any point in her life which, by the standards of _anyone_ of her background, was anything but normal. Everything had been decided for her as a direct response to her mere existence with her condition. As a response, people had decided where she went, and what was expected of her - _that_ was little different than the hive, she supposed. Maybe no one had much of a say, no matter who they were, what they did, or how important they were. As she looked up from the glass and met his eyes, she wondered how much of a say Drogan had had over the course of his own life.

Every so often, Eden would find herself in a situation and look back at what had led her there. This was one of those times. After all, it wasn’t every day someone like her shared a bottle of wine with an Inquisitor.

The moments that followed were excruciating. Glass in hand, Eden crossed the small bedroom and lowered herself awkwardly onto the edge of the bed, facing the Inquisitor - having received no indication from him that she should put herself anywhere else. He followed her every move as she did, his gaze so intense the deckhand had to look away.

“Um… how’s the wine?” she was the one to break the painful silence as she stared fixedly at her own glass, so far untouched.

“Perhaps you should try it yourself,” Drogan replied, raising his own and drinking again as though a subconscious response to her question. “Tell me Eden… have you ever had wine before?”

She shook her head, finally daring to look up. “Never.”

Her words were hesitant, she felt stupid asking it but needed the reassurance. “… _Can_ I have some? I know you gave me it, but… it ain’t _for_ us.”

The Inquisitor smirked as though it entertained him, the way she was. “As you said, it is mine to share. Do not waste the opportunity I give you - it might never come again.”

That put the deckhand’s mind at rest, at least a little. Riley had asked her to give Drogan whatever he wanted, after all, and if _this_ was what he wanted… she supposed it wasn’t the worst obligation ever. Most common folk _never_ got to drink, save for the booze people tended to make down in the hives, in their own bedrooms - the stuff that more often than not made them go blind. She’d heard of Wild Snake but had never come across it herself, or even known anyone who had. Maybe _that_ was for the best.

Drogan watched her expectantly as she tentatively raised the glass to her lips, and knocked back a generous mouthful at once.

_Fuck._

She nearly spat it out. Her face contorted as she forced herself to keep the foul drink in her mouth, feeling it burn her tongue more and more with each passing moment, and she shuddered, all her willpower needed to even attempt swallowing it down.

 _How do people drink this?_ Why _do people drink this?_

When done she met Drogan’s eyes again, feeling her face redden.

“Sorry…” Eden said quietly. “I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna shit on a present but-”

Her eyes widened in horror. She’d said _shit_ to an Inquisitor. She _kept swearing at him!_ She _had_ to stop doing that! Eden watched him, searching for any change in his still-cool expression, fearing for her life now more than ever.

Fortunately for her, he didn’t react to _that_ in any way. Maybe he hadn’t heard. Maybe he didn’t care. Whatever the reason, he’d glossed over it so, after offering a quick, internal thanks to the Emperor for that fact, Eden continued.

“But… it ain’t very nice. I’m sorry.”

His smirk only widened, for the first time on this trip he was actually grinning - perhaps he really didn’t care if she swore at him. Maybe it was what he expected from common folk and saw no reason to reprimand that which was beyond help. What wasn’t worth trying to help at all.

“To some it is an _acquired_ taste,” he said, contemplating his own glass, taking another sip and not even flinching. “Especially if one has not had it before. You do not have to finish it, Eden.”

Instinctively the girl drew her glass closer to her chest. “I’ll get used to it sir, I promise.”

It had taken her by surprise. Now prepared for what was to come, she took a smaller sip and found it to be a little more manageable. She could get through it.

“What… did you wanna talk about?” she asked. It was time to get this _focused conversation_ back on track. Then she could get out of here.

That same cool calm returned to the Inquisitor’s features. “The Genesis, of course,” he replied. “I never believed the rumours to be true stories… and were they true, I couldn’t possibly imagine meeting one of the _spirit people_ myself… I have a great many questions about the condition.”

Eden shrugged non-committally. “Fire away.”

Then, violet eyes timidly returning to meet his blue, she added, “…What were the rumours? That you heard?”

“In my early career I was tasked with investigating _heretical activity_ within the civilian population of a number of feudal worlds. My superior made a point to teach me about a very rare strain of mutant humans - who supposedly had purple eyes, and whose skin shone like steel. The eye colouration is a common trait among Cadians, of course, but there are other features that set the spirit people far apart."

As he said that his own eyes travelled almost subconsciously over her exposed skin - shoulder, arm, breasts - observing with more awareness the exact way in which it glittered.

"When first we met I was not convinced," he continued. "You must surely understand why a _closer inspection_ was necessary."

Eden offered a single, nervous nod of her head. "Um... I ain't never met any Cadians but... I trust you. So, what else? Did you get told?"

"The spirit people were said to be _unnaturally_ durable, rumoured capable of taking a roundhouse kick from a space marine… and living to tell the tale.”

The Inquisitor's eyes narrowed in a small frown, expression a little more serious. Eden leaned in, hooked on his every word. “For reference, such an attack from an Astartes would surely break the average human being clean in half.”

The girl couldn’t help but flash a timid grin - which she forced away the moment she realised it was there. Despite that, she still raised her eyebrows, expression coy. “We could try it.”

It was an obvious joke, though be it a terrible, nervous one. “I got Alexandria’s Genesis, and you’re a space marine, it… we don’t wanna waste the opportunity, right?”

His predatory smirk returned. “Were I a space marine…”

“Oh…”

Again she couldn’t help but blush. “Sorry, I just thought-”

“You are not the first to mistake me for one.” He didn’t seem remotely fazed. If anything, he actually seemed flattered, his smile widening further and reaching those bright eyes of his. “And you will not be the last. It is common among civilians, even the Tech-priests on Graia can be confused from time to time… you do not know any better.”

A silence, less painful this time, began to stretch out between the two. Just as Eden dared think that this only left more questions than answers, he kept on. “Should you wonder why I _am_ like I am… it is not uncommon for Inquisitors, and other Imperial agents… to accept genetic enhancements over the course of our lives. And should you wonder _why_ one might undergo such procedures… consider it _necessary equipment_ for the tasks ahead.”

Now the girl really was beginning to think Drogan could read her mind. She said nothing, again dropping her attention to the velvet red in her glass, and raising it to her lips.

“Tell me, Eden,” the Inquisitor continued, apparently content to watch her drink, his eyes travelling over her exposed skin, observing with interest the unique way her pale flesh reflected the light - not like _steel_ , but certainly not in a way human skin should. “Are these rumours anywhere close to the truth?”

Eden swallowed her drink. “I dunno about _space marines_ …” she deliberated. “But I gone through a _lot_ of stuff that should’ve killed me. People… don’t really live that long in the mines. You go somewhere without a good light and you fall… most people die if they fall really far. I didn’t. I was scared, but I was… fine.”

Drogan’s eyes were fixed on hers.

Eden drank again. The more she had, the easier it seemed to be to look at him. Maybe easing her nerves was the main purpose of giving her alcohol in the first place. Whether that was the reason, or not, it had ended up that way.

For that reason she now spoke freely. “And you have accidents with the tools. You got a _lot_ of people in one place, you don’t got a lot of light, and you got a lot of hammers and picks. It happens. I got my arm broke once but it was a _really_ bad accident and some other guys died. People break bones all the time down there and that’s fine, that ain’t what kills them. If it broke the skin that’s when it gets infected and that’s when they die.”

The Inquisitor nodded knowingly but still said nothing, nursing his wine as he listened.

The girl shrugged her shoulders quickly. “I didn’t get infected. I was just fine. It’s always been like that… most people down there get black lung in the end but I hardly even coughed up once.”

“And where is ‘ _down there_ ’?” Drogan inquired after a pause.

Eden blinked. “In the mines.”

She swore he rolled his eyes at her, if even a little. “Where _are_ the mines?” he asked. “Where is it you came from?”

It was odd that the name of her homeworld would be a little hazy to a girl who had spent her whole childhood there - a thing which took more than an instant to recall. But the name of a planet was something seldom mentioned. It was far less important than the names of the workplaces, the names of the tenements in which they slept away what little free time they had, and the names of the people they could trust - and those they couldn’t. No one cared for the name of the collective ground on which they walked.

Yet still, it was there. “Necromunda, sir.”

“Necromunda.”

Drogan repeated it straight back to her like he hadn’t heard right, so Eden offered a rapid, small nod of affirmation. That didn’t seem to please him, on the contrary, his frown only deepened further. In that moment he was terrifying.

“You were born in the slums of Necromunda… and worked the mines.”

“...Yeah. Is… that okay?”

That look in his eyes was making her feel queasy.

“ _How the fuck_ did you get out of the mines?"

The deckhand stared. Suddenly, having sworn at the man seemed now like less of a concern. That aside, she understood well what he meant by it - the mines and factories of her homeworld were a life sentence to anyone who happened to be born in that place, that was common knowledge. In the hive they were born, they worked, and they died, and not much happened in between. There were ways out, of course, but joining up with one of the resident gangs and running shady odd-jobs had never appealed to her. Not when she could just keep her head down and do her job - as she’d always seen it, someone like _her_ was better off not drawing attention to herself.

Despite the way Drogan stared her down (she remarked internally that his eyes weren’t just bright, they were actually glowing, if barely enough to make out) she remained calm, content in the knowledge that she was no heretic. She had nothing to hide.

“How else?” she offered another quick shrug. “The-”

Her words were cut off by an almighty roar. Eden shrieked despite herself as the rumble of thunder split the recycled air, repeatedly, barely giving pause to allow the girl to gather thoughts of any kind. Her initial shock over, her eyes darted to the viewport across the room - a criss-cross of lightning tinted in all colours, flashing over and over like a strobe light beyond the glass.

With her free hand she gripped tight on the bedsheets underneath as the room began to tremble - the whole space shook as though struck by an earthquake. Initial shock aside, Eden tried to calm her raging heart with measured breaths as she rode out the turbulence. It would be over soon.

The contents of her glass shook along with the ship, and as she noticed the half-empty bottle of wine on the nightstand inching closer and closer to the edge, the deckhand jumped to her feet and caught it before it spilled, struggling to keep her balance and opting to fall against the wall and ride this out.

Drogan, however, barely reacted at all. Ignoring the cacophony that screamed at the both of them, he turned to watch the storm raging beyond the viewport with what Eden took to be a mild interest, the lattice of lightning reflected in his eyes as she looked into them.

Then, as suddenly as it began, it was all over. The deafening noise quieted, leaving only a ringing silence in its wake. The occasional bolt of lighting, almost hair-thin would blink in and out of existence in the view beyond but what they now journeyed through much more resembled dust and fog than space. The turbulence was gone, as though the Colossus had suddenly found itself a much calmer portion of the void to traverse. Except they were no longer in the void.

“We have entered the warp.”

There was a contemplative air to the Inquisitor’s words, despite the fact that both of them were very used to warp travel. Or at least, Eden assumed that Drogan must have hundreds of years of experience. Eden’s legs still shook a little as she stood, supported by the wall, and only when she was certain the ground beneath her was entirely still did she return, cautiously, to her previous spot on the bed.

“Yeah.” She topped up the Inquisitor’s drink, and then her own. “Emanuel ain’t sleeping tonight.”

The deckhand set the bottle down beside the bed, on the carpet, and her eyes flicked back up to his as she leaned back, putting her free hand on the bedsheets behind her to support her weight. “He’s the only one who can fly us in the warp.”

“How does the Colossus manage warp travel with a single Navigator?” Drogan asked. “It’s almost unheard of.”

“We stay in for a couple days… and come back out for a couple so he can sleep. And we keep doing that. Emanuel’s okay with that, he’s kind of used to it, but he _really_ wants us to get another Navigator. Can’t say I blame him.”

She watched the man take another drink, a sense of contentment filling up her blood and flowing to every part of her as she did. That was probably the alcohol. It was great for that, Eden decided, as she let a warm smile spread across her face. Even as Drogan met her gaze again, she still smiled. Considering how terrified she’d been at the start of the trip, being this relaxed in his presence was somehow freeing. Maybe it had been wrong of her to be so afraid.

She took another swig. “What was it you were saying? Before we got in the warp?”

“You were about to explain how you managed the unthinkable,” Drogan replied simply. “How you escaped the mines of Necromunda.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Fingers ran through her hair, still wet near the ends. “Some guys just came up to me one day and said I had to go with them. Because of the Genesis. I think… I _know_ people started talking about it as soon as I went out to work, ‘cause it’s kind of obvious. I was about six when I started working. I always wondered why it took them until I was twelve to come and get me if I was _that important_ …”

“The hives are enormous,” Drogan contributed, bowing his head knowingly. “It may have taken years for the information - the _rumours_ to reach someone who realised they mattered, let alone one who could make use of them… and more years still to track you down. Surely you lived among billions of others, leaving little in the way of a footprint to betray your presence.”

“Yeah, it’s probably that. Didn’t think about it that way.”

“You were then taken to the research site? That is why you were singled out?” 

“Yeah. It was on a different planet so I had to say goodbye to my family. Once I was there, it was where I lived. I worked for them, obviously, just cleaning and stocking the rooms and labs and stuff. But they let me live in their dorm until I met Riley and _she_ gave me a job.”

Drogan tipped back the last of his wine. “How did you feel, meeting others like yourself?”

Eden shrugged her shoulders once, looking away in thought. “Most people _are_ like me,” she decided after a pause. “Just ‘cause they don’t got purple eyes and shiny skin don’t mean other people ain’t like me. People with the Genesis ain’t no different. In fact they came from so many different worlds they were even _less_ like me or… _anyone_ I ever met before.”

The Inquisitor’s expression was unreadable as she returned her attention to him. “You’re right,” he said. “One’s identity is not defined by such superficial traits. You must forgive me, Eden.”

Again the girl smiled widely. “Don’t worry about it sir. You got a point though - we _were_ different to most people, we just don’t think about it. We don’t hardly ever break bones, we don’t get sick, we live longer than most people- that’s what we got told anyway…”

She finished off her own glass and reached down for the bottle. “There’s a reason they wanted us there. They took a _lot_ of my eggs as soon as it was safe, which… _hurt_ … but it’s over now. I think they said they wanted to…”

After filling up both their glasses, Eden set the empty bottle down. She thought about it for a moment before answering, trying to find the right words. “They wanted to see if it could get passed on. They _want_ to pass it on, and breed it so more people would have it. So more people could live longer and not get sick. Makes people more useful, right?”

Meeting Drogan’s eyes, she added, “It don’t get passed on like that so they’re kind of… scientists don’t know how to make more people have it. There ain’t ever a lot of us to work with so they work _really_ slow. It makes them kinda... _frustrated_... but they do the best they can.”

“And your arm,” the Inquisitor asked, gesturing with his glass gently enough that the contents didn’t spill. “How did you come by it? Surely that is not a _routine_ part of research?”

The girl shook her head. “No, it didn’t have nothing to do with that. I just got it ‘cause I was there.”

“Explain, please.”

“It was another test some other team was doing nearby. It was… just putting fancy tech they already got into different bionics that don’t got it because it might be useful. They had a whole ship of people come to get these arms but the ship didn’t come. I got told it was destroyed on the way and everyone died.”

She shrugged a little as she said it. “Which happens. So… they had to use the people they already had. Which was us.”

The Inquisitor took a drink. “For common folk you have lived quite an extraordinary life, Eden.”

At that, she leaned forwards. “Sir… can I ask you something?”

Drogan looked a little surprised by that - not that she thought she could catch him off guard. “By all means.”

“You… were saying you used to track down heretics. And your boss told you about the Genesis.”

The man nodded knowingly. “You want to know whether the Genesis is considered a heretical trait.”

“...Yeah.”

He set his glass down on the nightstand. “Some mutations are sanctioned by the Imperium. Alexandria’s Genesis, though widely considered a myth, is one of them. It would be wrong to condemn you for traits you did not choose when _I myself_ am a Psyker, like your Astropath Sebastian… or the men and women stored in the lower level of your ship… powering your Gellar field.”

So he _could_ read her mind after all. The girl made a mental note to be extra mindful of what she thought around Drogan.

His tone had grown so dark as he said what he said, yet there was something caring, almost fond in his eyes as they fixed on Eden’s. He leaned in.

“Rest assured, Eden,” he continued. “You have _nothing_ to fear from me… I know you are no heretic. Your condition saved you from your own life, from working yourself to death in the mine- no matter how long you expect to live it would still happen sooner, rather than later. Why was it your Captain offered you this position? You are a _gimmick_ to each and every client you serve, not to mention your augmetic makes you _particularly_ handy - I have watched you work. Riley had the foresight to _claim_ you while she had the chance… and it was the greatest decision she would ever make.”

The deckhand swallowed away the lump in her throat. No amount of wine could numb the discomfort he caused her by staring her down quite so intensely. Avoiding his eye nervously, she settled her gaze on the small scar on the bridge of his nose.

“The Genesis is a _gift_ from the Emperor,” he whispered. “I understand that now. Truly… you have been touched by His own hand.”

Eden’s heart raced, only now was she suddenly aware of it. She didn’t know _what_ to say to that. “Um… wow that’s… it’s an honour you’d say that, sir.”

“Do not call me sir, please,” he said, waving away her formality. “You may call me Drogan.”


	5. Chapter 5

Having clients staying aboard the Colossus who were noticeably satisfied was always a great feeling to Eden. And knowing these clients had no intention whatsoever of _killing her_ , was _apparently_ even better. Funnily enough she’d never actually thought about that before the Inquisition travelled with them. From that point on, she supposed it would cross her mind more often.

The deckhand gnawed absently on her biscuit bar as she filled a kettle, only setting the half-eaten lump on the counter to light the stove and set the kettle on top. As she reached over and picked it up again, the peaceful background humming was marred by an offensive scrape - the kitchen door sliding along its broken track. Eden looked up to see her Captain enter the room, and she straightened up a little.

“G’morning Riley,” the girl said through a mouthful of indeterminate matter. She swallowed it down as the Captain approached, and put the rest of the meal aside. “How’s Emanuel?”

Riley leaned against the counter. “Hanging in there… best not to disturb him, I only came down to get his recaf for him.”

Eden bowed her head in understanding. “I’m… I’m sorry about the data-slate.”

Her eyes fell on the ruined device sat atop a bed of now-dry towels on the counter, and a hot blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. It wasn’t the first time she’d destroyed company equipment by accident - a large part of learning maintenance was apparently trial and error but this was the first time the damage had been so _avoidable_ , so pointless. “I’ll take it out of my pay.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” A kind smile spread across the Captain’s face as she looked from the data-slate, to her deckhand, waving off her apology with a quick gesture. “We’ll get you a new one… but I don’t know when we’ll get the chance.”

“Mmhm.”

“Unless we can charge for one at short notice… could take us weeks to find you one planetside. You’ll have to make do with your ledger until then. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” As she gave a quick nod, Eden’s smile was wide. She turned and shut off the stove, took the now-steaming kettle and filled an open press with its contents.

Riley watched her work in silence for a short while.

“You certainly seem happier than when we started the trip,” she mused. She hopped up on top of the counter, short yet thin legs dangling some ways off the ground.

“Mmh?” Eden turned around as she replaced the plunger.

“You’re smiling again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re happy, I just thought you were _hating_ what I’ve asked you to do.”

“Oh yeah, I really was.” Eden still beamed, unable to control herself. “I think I was worrying about nothing, they ain’t as bad as I thought. Drogan… ain’t the guy I thought he was. Turns out he’s pretty nice to spend time with.”

The Captain’s head cocked to the side, a look of amusement on her ageing face. “He’s got you calling him by _name_ , now?”

“Yeah, I guess.” The younger shrugged. “He said I should.”

“You guys have gotten pretty close, then.”

“I won’t say _close_ …”

“So… what happened last night? With him?”

As though being interrogated by her own mother, Eden’s demeanour grew a little sheepish. The gift she’d been given was at the forefront of her thoughts. “He wanted me to drink with him. He gave me wine.”

Timidly meeting her Captain’s gaze, finally. “Is that okay? I promise I wouldn’t have had no wine if he didn’t give me it. He asked me for it, I gave it him and he gave it right back. …Like a present. I swear I didn’t even like it!”

Riley chuckled out loud. “That’s _fine_ , Eden, don’t worry. I didn’t expect the Inquisitor would do anything of the sort but it’s not a problem if he does.”

However, a small frown crossed her face, eyebrows knitting together as her gaze returned to Eden’s, suddenly more serious. “You didn’t _sleep with him_ , did you?”

Eden stared, horrified.

“ _No! Ew!_ ”

Immediately after, she turned away, ashamed of her outburst. She felt terrible. Drogan couldn’t help how he looked - if anything his appearance was a reflection of the sacrifices he’d made to keep people like _her_ safe from harm. He and his acolytes did an admirable job - one Eden couldn’t even imagine doing herself. They didn’t deserve to be regarded with disgust of all things.

She bowed her head. “Sorry… that’s awful of me. It ain’t his fault.”

She busied herself with the recaf, pressing the plunger down and fiddling with the mugs already lined up on the counter.

Riley visibly relaxed at the outburst, clearly satisfied with the response. “Well… good,” she kept on. “Be sure it stays that way. I know I said see his every need met… but…”

Dark hand, slightly wrinkled, placed on Eden’s metal shoulder. “Not _that_ need. Please.”

“Yeah, sure.” Eden filled the mugs with the contents of the press, checking her notes to remember which ones to add sweetener and powdered milk to.

Despite the two of them never having had this conversation before, Eden wasn’t exactly in the habit of fucking the clients. Just as Riley had always assumed Eden would keep her distance, the deckhand had, in turn, assumed she was expected to do so - not to mention getting remotely attached to such fleeting acquaintances was surely a perfect recipe for emotional disaster. And so the two of them had existed harmoniously under this mutual assumption for quite some time.

“We’re not _that_ kind of business,” the Captain continued, taking her own mug in hand, a little too hot to drink just yet. “I _don’t_ want us getting a recommendation that way. I want us to _earn_ it. What’s more… I don’t want us getting a _reputation_ , either.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean.” Eden searched a drawer for a bottle of off-white pills, and dropped one of these into Emanuel’s mug, giving it a final stir. She pushed this towards Riley.

It hadn’t occurred to her that the Inquisitor would want sex. With that in mind, she reflected on the previous night with a new perspective, thinking back on everything that had been said, and everything that had happened.

“Don’t worry though, he don’t like me like that,” she decided.

“He doesn’t?”

“Nah, he’s just interested in the Genesis.”

“Oh.” Riley looked a little surprised as she turned away, and cautiously took the first sip of recaf.

“You think he does?”

She met Eden’s eye again. “Actually… yes, it looked that way. He’s been staring at you whenever you’re not looking. Whenever he thinks _I’m_ not looking. You don’t see it happening but he’s _definitely_ been… spending too much time looking where he shouldn’t be. I don’t know how else to say it, he’s been checking you out. I don’t think I’d have even asked about this if he hadn’t been doing it.”

For the brief moment Eden let herself think this might be the case, that she might be _attractive_ in the eyes of the Inquisitor, she couldn’t help but feel _extremely_ flattered. But she dismissed that idea straight away. She was common folk, so even if Drogan _did_ want sex, he’d look elsewhere for it, surely. Again she scoured her memory of the whole journey so far, trying to fit the pieces together somehow.

She came up blank, only offering another slow shrug of her shoulders. “I really think he’s just interested in the Genesis. He keeps going on and on about how big of a deal it is, and you gotta think he ain’t never met one before. And never will again. I think… someone like that _would_ stare.”

Riley nodded, more to herself than anything. “I see.”

“Don’t worry Riley, I ain’t gonna fuck him.” Eden offered a wide smile, hoping her Captain would return it. “Even if he wants to, I don’t see him like that.”

Riley did return it. “I trust you.” 

She slid off the counter and grabbed the second mug. “Shouldn’t have said anything. I’ll catch up with you later… I have to get back to Emanuel.”

*

*

Needless to say, the Immaterium had the potential to be a very dangerous place. When human beings traversed its dusty expanse they played with something they didn’t understand, not one bit, and all they _did_ know was that they could _never_ be too careful when they handled it.

Over the many conversations she’d had with so many clients, Eden learned it wasn’t just how they handled the Immaterium that determined how it treated them - time and time again she’d been told that the thoughts and the mood of all living things had power in that place. Eden had taken this to mean their safety was ensured not just by the Gellar fields but in part by the power of belief. To her, this meant that if she wanted the Colossus to make it out in one piece, it would do so.

She’d also learned that the Emperor of Man was the one who made warp travel possible at all. That shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise - _who else_ other than their Lord would be capable of such a feat? Surely He was another component of that recipe for safe travel. And to Eden it only seemed fair that when they journeyed through the warp, He should be appeased. He permitted them passage, and could surely take it away should He see fit. For that reason, she spent most of her spare time in the chapel whenever they were in that place.

Eden grovelled on the carpeted floor, facing the wooden effigy. Each time she stole a glance up at its carved and painted face the lightning beyond the viewport, more frequent and aggressive than the night before, would burst into life and cast fleeting shadows on its face - just for a moment. Its expression was always so serene, but whenever the unnatural lightning fell upon it the effigy seemed to snarl disapprovingly down at her.

The girl cast her eyes dutifully back to the floor, and continued to worship in complete silence. Underneath her fingers and bare legs, the floor shook. The whole room shook. This kind of turbulence was fairly commonplace in the warp, she’d learned over time, but rarely was it quite as violent as now. Surely, she thought to herself as she struggled to keep her balance just grovelling on hands and knees, about as low to the floor as she could possibly get, _surely_ there was only so much turbulence a cruiser could endure before it ripped at the seams. Surely there was only so much warping a thing like the Colossus could take before it became too weak, sometimes it felt like the tail end must snap off completely with the constant movement.

It was hardly something to be lingering on while trapped in a cruiser, but she could hardly take her mind off it.

She herself shook, trembling as she knelt. _Positive_ thoughts were what got people through this place, she thought to herself, bravery was the thing that helped men survive in the warp but it was hard to be either of those things right now.

Every now and then came the impact. An apocalyptic crash, metal on metal as something truly gargantuan - a _great many_ gargantuan things - bombarded the ship. It was ear-splitting when they hit but the physical toll was just as frightening. With each impact the ship was thrown off-course, and the humans within (only the humans, it seemed, and never the furniture) were flung across whatever room or walkway they were in at the time.

Eden didn’t know what they were, or how much _damage_ they were doing to the exterior of the cruiser. They terrified her, and she cowered in place, never knowing when the next _thing_ would strike their ship. Never knowing whether the next one would obliterate it, along with everyone inside.

It had been about an hour since the bombardment started, and about two hours since Eden had retired to the chapel. It must’ve been all their prayers that kept the ship in one piece, it _must’ve_ been. If she kept praying, to Him… they’d be just fine. If she just believed - in the ship, in Emanuel, and in Him, they’d be all right.

Crazy things happened all the time in the warp, that was common knowledge. This just happened to be one of the worst experiences Eden had so far had.

When the door slid open behind her, heavy footfalls muffled by the carpet, Eden still grovelled, and she still trembled. She didn’t lift her head or even open her eyes to see who had joined her, but she’d come to recognise the exact pace of the Inquisitor’s strides - how few he seemed to take before he was right upon her. She’d definitely come to recognise that.

He lingered for a short while, but without saying a word, Drogan eventually dropped to his knees on her right, and when Eden finally dared open her eyes he’d assumed the same position beneath that effigy as she had, his body low and his head down. Raven hair fell over his eyes but didn’t obscure his face, not from where Eden was. It must’ve been an awkward position in the power armour - even in just her shorts and vest, Eden had to constantly readjust to stay comfortable - but he wore his armour like a second skin, and didn’t show any signs of discomfort. A look of peace washed over his strong features as he shut his eyes.

Despite the chaos outside, so near, only the walls of a stranger’s craft separating him from it, Drogan was calm, and cool, as he always was. He wasn’t afraid. Eden was hooked on that calm, that complacency for the sake of her _own_ sanity right now, so she kept watching him. She’d come to trust Drogan. Of course, there was always an assumed trust for an Inquisitor - _as_ an Inquisitor - but now it was a little more personal than that.

Seeing him so calm was possibly the greatest comfort to her in that moment.

Still, she couldn’t help but whimper at the impact. The next unidentified _thing_ struck from underneath this time, up at the ship’s belly and as the whole craft bucked, the two of them were jarred. While the Inquisitor seemed ready for it, bracing his body for impact, Eden held back a sob as she regained physical composure. She put all her energy into holding back - she cried often in the warp but she wouldn’t cry in front of Drogan.

He must’ve heard, because he turned his head her way, to the left, bright eyes fixed on her. “Keep low, Eden.” It was a command - like everything else, but it was given softly.

After a pause, staring into her wide, terrified eyes, he kept on. “The warp is stable around us. I can feel it. Do not be afraid.”

Eden’s next whimper was incredulous, and explosive. “This is _stable?_ ” she repeated, unable to hide the derisive bite to her words. “If this is stable, _please_ tell me what _un_ -stable is!”

The Inquisitor offered a wry smile. “You do not want to know.”

“Yeah… you’re probably right about-”

The next impact sent the girl flying. It struck from the left, the ship lurched but she didn’t follow its new trajectory. Eden screamed, rolling violently across the floor and only stopping when she slammed against the wall, flesh and metal colliding with a dull thud. Though she wasn’t _hurt_ , keeping it together was impossible now - disoriented from the impact and scared out of her mind, her breaths came deep and ragged, tears leaked from her eyes and fell into the carpet. She pressed her face further into it.

The fall of heavy boots on carpet came closer, the Inquisitor crossing the room to stand where she lay, pathetic and helpless, and his sheer presence loomed over the girl like a shadow she couldn’t see. Eden expected him to chastise her for crying, even if he could see she was trying to keep it together. She didn’t look up.

He didn’t do that. In a swift motion Drogan knelt, and he bent over her, the hard armour of his left arm and the solid metal of his right along with all its knobs and screws and jagged edges, wrapped painfully around the deckhand’s waist, securing her in his grip before pulling her up and back onto her knees without saying a word.

His armour was almost claustrophobic against her back as he pulled her tight against his own body, she felt it move in distinct segments like an insect as he roughly hauled her up with him to her feet like she weighed nothing at all, and warm air - warm, dry air washed over her back from the vents at his middle. Their flow had a steady rhythm, almost like they were breathing.

Drogan carried her unceremoniously across the room like this, back to where the two of them had knelt just a minute before, and there he put her down.

“Kneel.”

The command was simple, and curt. Eden did as ordered, sinking to her knees like her still-trembling legs had given out from under her without warning. As though nothing had happened but unable to forget that it most certainly had, she fell back into worship, head bowing and hands placing to the floor.

She let thoughts of the Emperor fill her mind, her very soul, as the Inquisitor reclaimed his place at her side, and she let her eyes fall shut. Thoughts of how much she loved Him, her gratitude for allowing them to pass through His realm, more than she could put into mere words. Of how eager she was to do right by Him, and see His agents through to the other side of this… and to their base. Thoughts of-

Her eyes snapped open as she felt the rough leather of Drogan’s gauntleted hand close over hers. His flesh, on her metal. As she met his eyes the look on his face was the same as always - cool and calm.

Eden let the reality of that moment sink in. Just the idea of this man - an Inquisitor - was enough to strike fear in the hearts of billions of lesser men- the idea of him certainly did that for her, but he saw fit to actually comfort her, when he could see she was at her worst. When it really came down to it.

She couldn’t have been more wrong about him.

The two of them returned their attention to their own thoughts. Together, his hand still atop her own, they rode the storm out, and worshipped in silence for some time. After all, nothing really needed to be said.

*

*

By the time dinner had been made and served the warp had seemingly settled, the bombardment having ended an hour or so before. Cain and Anastasia had been fed - Eden having made a little extra and taken that up to Emanuel who by now looked so exhausted the girl felt tired herself just looking at him - when it was safe to, anyway.

Her own meal was stowed in the pocket of her shorts - another biscuit bar, and she climbed the stairwell to the top level, with the final meal of the night in her hands. The Inquisitor had warned them all in advance he wasn’t to be disturbed for some time and said nothing more on the matter - when bringing dinner up to Cain she’d managed to get an explanation out of him, which for some reason he gave readily - his master was conducting experiments in his chamber that were apparently dangerous. This was something he apparently did whenever he had a chance to travel in the warp. When she’d asked Cain what it was he was _doing_ her curiosity was not satisfied - the acolyte wasn’t privy to any further information.

Now that she’d been summoned by the Inquisitor himself, Eden wondered whether he’d tell her if she asked him directly. Even if he wasn’t willing to say anything, just asking couldn’t hurt. She made a note to do just that as she emerged from the stairwell, rounded a corner and made her way to the very end of the walkway.

Approaching Drogan’s chamber, she noticed straight away the small light above the door’s console was still red. He didn’t want to be disturbed just yet, but he _had_ called her Servo-skull - which was something he’d only done a handful of times on the journey so far - and told her he was done.

The deckhand approached tentatively, with the intention of hanging back when she was close. The first thing that caught her attention were the voices, behind the door, one male and one female. Drogan, and Anastasia. They were in the middle of an argument, if their raised voices and the energy between them were anything to judge by. Not that she was trying to, or even _wanted_ to, but Eden couldn’t make out anything they were saying from her place in the walkway.

She didn’t want to get any closer and risk eavesdropping, let alone knock and interrupt them, but she didn’t exactly want to remain standing there, the bowl of risotto in her hands growing only more cold as time went by.

A shrill cry erupted from the chamber, so sudden it made Eden jump.

“If you want to do it, then _do it!_ It’s no business of mine!”

Now ready for something to happen but not knowing what that might be, Eden shrunk back as the door opened. The younger acolyte stormed out, in her anger hardly even noticing the deckhand was there but halting when she did. Anastasia didn’t say anything but stared daggers at Eden for that mere second their paths crossed.

She didn’t expect Anastasia to be more frightening than her master.

_Is she… gonna hurt me?_

That question was answered immediately - the acolyte huffed fiercely, but otherwise stormed off without any real show, along the walkway and out of sight. And Eden couldn’t help but stare blankly at the dark, empty stretch of a corridor for a few more seconds after she’d gone - what the fuck was _that_ about?

Eventually she turned back to the door - green light now. It was best to not think about any of it, after all, it was the business of the Inquisition, whatever it was, and had nothing to do with her. She approached the door, thankful at least that she didn’t have to bear the brunt of Anastasia’s fury, and knocked.

“Enter.”

She did just that, bowing her head politely as the door opened again, and stepping inside. “Hi Drogan. …It’s just me. I got dinner.”

“Thank you, Eden.”

When she actually looked up at him, properly, she did a double-take. Her growing curiosity over whether the Inquisitor indeed slept in his armour was finally satisfied - Drogan wasn’t wearing any of it. Eden’s attention shifted briefly to the neat pile of dull grey and dented gold built up against the wall, and then back to him. He instead wore a plain black T-shirt and khaki cargo pants, and Eden finally realised what was messing with her head so much - for once there wasn’t a single _I_ in sight. He almost looked like a normal person. He turned her way, gazing calmly down at her. He might be dressed like a normal person but certain features - namely the bionic arm, the massive scars and augmetic on his head, and the sheer _size_ of the man meant he couldn’t ever hope to blend in with normal people.

No matter what he did he always would stand out from all others, and Eden supposed the two of them had that in common.

Underneath the armour the Inquisitor’s body was just as physically impressive as she’d expected. Not that she’d been intentionally _looking_ but that T-shirt was kind of tight on Drogan’s broad shoulders and powerful chest, and… she was only a woman after all, and she recognised perfection when she saw it. She’d seen plenty of _athletic_ men back on her homeworld, especially in the mine - they tended to take off more and more clothing as they worked up a sweat, and the long-term effort of the job chiselled them perfectly but Drogan surpassed them all. Every single one.

 _Ana must’ve been helping him out of his armour_ , Eden thought to herself as she cast her gaze away - not wanting to stare any longer than she already had, and settling on the pile of grey somewhere near the foot of the bed.

“You ain’t wearing your armour,” she said.

It didn’t sound quite that stupid until the words came out of her mouth.

Drogan offered a wry smile. “Is is that obvious?”

“I mean…” She had to recover from that. “Why would you take it off in the warp? It’s dangerous.”

“Perhaps that is the point.”

Was that his idea of a joke? Or did it have something to do with whatever he’d been doing up here? Eden supposed she might never know, and instead of arguing the point further, offered a simple shrug. She crossed the small room and set the bowl down on the table, along with cutlery.

When she turned back to him she felt herself blush. “You let me know if you need anything else, right?”

She jerked a metal thumb over her shoulder, indicating the Servo-skull lingering in the doorway, waiting for its master to leave.

“Of course.”

Drogan’s eyes narrowed just a little as he watched the deckhand make for the door. “Do not worry about Anastasia.”

“Yeah?”

“She will not hurt you.”

He’d been reading her mind again.

“Umm… great to know. I’ll be up later on with recaf if you want it but I gotta go clean stuff now.”

With that, Eden left the room, hitting the button on the outside to shut the door behind her, only realising as she made her way back along the walkway and into the stairwell, descending the levels, that in all the excitement she’d forgotten to ask the Inquisitor about his experiment. She’d forgotten completely. She stopped in place for a moment, and thought about whether she was okay with that tiny itch never being seen to - tomorrow they’d part ways and she wouldn’t see Drogan ever again, and there probably wouldn’t be a chance to ask again during the trip.

Eventually, Eden decided it wasn’t really something that concerned her. She kept on descending the stairwell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We will have smut in the next chapter. Your patience at this time has been greatly appreciated <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is actually way longer than I expected it to be. I wrote everything exactly as I planned it but it just kept _going_. I'm not actually sure what to think of it (it, being the crucial scene), it just ended up going on for _so long_. I knew it was going to be kinda gritty, but I had no idea it was gonna be quite as brutal as it ended up being. Or maybe I'm over-reacting, I dunno. ~~I'm actually kind of ashamed of it.~~ But I got some nice words about it so far which really eases my mind.
> 
> Anyway, I was saying earlier on that I was making up a back story of some kind for Drogan. Yeah... that's a thing that happens here.

Lively music blared from the sound system in Eden’s bedroom, loud enough for anyone to hear if they walked past her door. And, with no one to see her do it, the deckhand herself danced about her bedroom as she cleaned. With animated yet ungainly arcs, and rhythmic steps in patterns she hadn’t thought out in advance she approached the dresser in the corner of the room, gave it a few quick sprays with a can of polish, and dusted with a now-damp rag, her every move in time with the beat.

She threw back her head and sang as the chorus came, emphasising certain words above others, drawing them out. Eden was utterly oblivious to the world outside her bedroom, lost in her own happiness, and maybe she couldn’t be blamed for that. After all, the warp had calmed down so much over the last few hours the ship barely even trembled around her. In a place that was seldom so peaceful, that was cause for celebration.

Next was the small mountain of clothes on the floor. She grabbed an armful and danced her way to the wardrobe, throwing open the door and beginning to organise her belongings. When the bridge came around the girl, commanded by the lyrics, squatted down just a little and shook her ass, side to side, for far longer than she needed to, a smile on her face that spread from ear to ear as she surfaced, and returned to the middle of the room for the next armful.

When the song came to an end, so did Eden’s lively jigs and arcs. She stilled. Not yet left in silence, the song was followed by another but nowhere near the pace and energy of the last. It killed the mood more than anything, and, no longer taken by that compulsive need to sing and dance and shake her ass, Eden crossed the room to shut the sound system off entirely. In the space which was now significantly quieter than it had been, the girl turned around, and screamed aloud when she all but collided with the massive figure loitering in the open space.

“Drogan!” she gasped, trying to regain some measure of composure and pressing a hand to her chest in an effort to still her pounding heart. “What are you _doing here?_ ”

That was when she spotted the two small, empty glasses in the Inquisitor’s left hand, and the dusty bottle in his right. Eden scrambled to shut off the music - a still-trembling finger pressed to the switch - and the room fell silent. The Inquisitor grinned widely, seeming to relish the deckhand’s embarrassment.

He held up the bottle, and the glasses, as if that answered everything. “I have been trying your extension for some time,” he answered, his gaze falling on the silent Servo-skull that drifted about the bedroom, and then flicking over to the sound system, the same look of amusement written all over his strong features. “Now I see why you failed to respond. Unable to contact you… I turned to your Captain for service.”

“Is that…” Eden’s eyebrows knitted together in a deep frown as she inspected the old bottle from where she stood. It looked vaguely familiar. “Is that the Amasec? Riley let you have the Amasec?”

Drogan held it out for her to see. “Riley was the one to tell me I could have _whatever I wanted_ … and to take me down to the kitchen to make my choice. She seemed delighted by it. When I informed her you were not responding to my calls, I was advised to seek you out directly… should I wish to drink with you again.”

Eden’s face was hot. The blood pounded in her temples. He couldn’t have seen her shake her ass, she _hadn’t_ just shaken her ass at an Inquisitor. He _hadn’t_ seen that.

“Um… how long have you been here? In my room?”

That smirk would be the death of her. “Long enough.”

As he strode into the room, passing by her, he continued. “You sing very well.”

She felt her very soul wither up and die inside of her. She _had_ just shaken her ass at an Inquisitor.

Drogan made his way past, ignoring the pile of clothes on the floor - smaller now than it had been but still there - and over to Eden’s bed. He set the two glasses down on her nightstand, and right on cue, the mind-reader kept on. “Do not be ashamed, Eden. I feel I should have paid extra to see that.”

Without giving her a moment to process what he’d just said, he looked up and over to her. “Now… will you join me a final time? We have only tonight.”

He was right about that. In addition, Eden had never tried Amasec before - and certainly would never get the chance again. Not to mention she needed something much stronger than wine to take her mind off what she’d done. The girl nodded enthusiastically as she approached the bed, and Drogan, and took a glass for herself.

“Yeah… you bet I will.” She watched him unscrew the bottle cap and fill her glass with an amber liquid. She knew what Amasec looked like, she’d served it on a couple of occasions but had never stopped to wonder how it might taste.

“Very good.” When he was done, Drogan took his own glass and filled that, setting the remainder on the nightstand.

Eden lowered herself down, somewhere by the pillows. She was much more relaxed in her own bedroom than in the clients’ chambers, and as the Inquisitor settled, joining her on the bed, she raised the glass to her lips.

“So what did you wanna talk about tonight?” she asked, head tilting a little in her curiosity as she sniffed briefly at the drink - it smelled much more like something she’d use to clean the bathrooms with than something she should be drinking.

Drogan, having been content to watch her inspect the liquor, gave a quick nod to her glass. “If you did not like the wine, you most certainly will not enjoy _this_.”

Eden couldn’t justify feeling quite as _insulted_ as she did, because he was probably right. All the same, she offered him a flippant look. “I’m a big girl, Drogan. I’ll manage it _just fine_.”

As if to prove herself, she took the first drink and as the liquid filled her mouth, she stiffened. All her concentration, and all her energy in that moment was dedicated to keeping a level face and resisting the compulsion to gag as she did her best to swallow down the poison.

She _wouldn’t_ let him be right.

_Fuck._

Eden stared the Inquisitor in the eye as she swallowed, defiantly, trying as hard as she could to counter the involuntary flaring of her nostrils and the grimace that consumed her whole face, watching his smirk grow wider and wider until he too struggled to keep a level face - now he was almost laughing.

She’d swallowed the stuff down but still it burned her whole mouth. Was that _normal?_

Despite the Inquisitor trying his best not to burst out laughing, Eden gave a shrug of her shoulders, and pretended to contemplate the glass and its amber contents, she too unable to hide her growing smile. “It ain’t _so_ bad…” There was a clear lacing of sarcasm to her words.

She never expected Drogan was capable of laughter - less so that she could be the one to bring it out. And he was actually handsome when he laughed, his natural features lit up with a joy she didn’t think possible for someone like him. Maybe he was actually fun to work with, back on the Forge World. Maybe there was more to him than there seemed to be at the surface, maybe Inquisitors could be not just good people, but _fun_ people. She hadn’t ever thought of that.

What was more, Eden couldn’t possibly have imagined, at the start of this trip - when thoughts of staying as far away from this man as possible for as long as possible were the only ones that ran through her mind - that she’d be sat with him, drinking with him, and actually _enjoying_ those moments. _Laughing_ with him. Never could she have imagined using his name over a title. Talking to him the way she now did.

“So… you thought I wasn’t gonna like it,” she kept on, still grinning. “So why give me it?”

Drogan returned her flippant gaze. “I happen to enjoy Amasec,” he said simply. He took his first sip and, like with the wine the night before, didn’t even flinch. “And though I expected you to _tolerate_ it at best, it was my assumption you might stay for the conversation. I had _hoped_ you might.”

“Yeah, you ain’t wrong, I _definitely_ like you more than… alcohol. But I don’t know anything _about_ you.”

Bright blue eyes lifted from his drink, to her.

“Can we… _change_ that? I told you a lot about me. I don’t wanna just keep talking about myself.”

Drogan lowered his glass. “What do you want to know? Keep in mind there is much I cannot tell you.”

“What, like, your work?”

“Exactly.”

“But… why not? I heard the Inquisition don’t like people knowing what they’re up to, but… it ain’t _that_ bad, right?”

The Inquisitor seemed to be taking a moment to decide on the right words. “Some people are _very_ good at hiding their true intentions, they masquerade as _loyal citizens_ of the Imperium and deceive the best of us. As members of the _Inquisition_ we take a risk each time we share classified information, lest it find its way into the wrong hands.”

“You know my… intentions, though. I just clean and make dinner. You can trust me.”

“Of course I can trust you, Eden. By now that should go without saying. But what would happen if my enemies were to learn of such a conversation between us? _You_ would become _their_ target.”

As he spoke - his tone reverting to something more like a stern reprimand - he leaned in, looming over the girl who shrunk further up the bed as he did.

“There are many dark forces active within our galaxy, and each is my enemy. They would find you, and take advantage of this ship’s poor defences to seize you. You would be taken to a place the guiding light of our Emperor can never touch. And there you would be subject to horrors… the likes of which you are, quite fortunately, unable to _possibly imagine_.”

When he was done, the air was heavy with the ensuing silence, by the sheer weight of what he’d said.

“If you were lucky,” Drogan continued, a little more softly now. “Your body would give out in a matter of weeks, perhaps days… despite the drugs administered to deliberately extend your life… and your suffering would come to an end. I wish to spare you such a fate, and for this reason you must understand why I cannot talk about my _work_.”

And with that, he leaned back, opting to shift further along the bed and sit against the wall that it was pushed up against. He took another drink.

“Yeah, okay,” Eden said after yet another agonising pause between the two of them. She joined him, shuffling back on her bed and leaning against the wall, cool against her exposed skin. She tried her hardest not to wonder what those horrors might be, and instead counted her blessings internally for having never encountered them. “You don’t gotta tell me about your work.”

The deckhand braved another sip, the silence between them slightly less uncomfortable now. For a while they said nothing. That was when Eden first thought she ought to turn the music back on to fill the void.

However, she didn’t do that. She stayed where she was, looking up at the Inquisitor. “Ain’t there _nothing_ you can tell me though? Really general stuff, maybe? Something everyone already knows?”

Drogan almost looked a little bored with the topic as he met her eyes. “Such as?”

“Um… you said you track down heretics, right? On… uh…”

“Feudal worlds.”

“Yeah, those. What’s that like?”

“Ordo Hereticus.”

“What?”

“The branch of the Inquisition for which I worked, as an Interrogator… a very long time ago. I have since changed specialties.”

“Why’d you change specialties?”

The tiniest pause. “That is not important.”

“Oh. Um… can you say what you do now?”

An even longer pause. “Xenos.”

“What’s _that?_ ”

“To you… aliens.”

“Oh, wow. Um…”

It was clear Drogan was anything but comfortable with the chosen topic, and with each curt, reluctant response, Eden regretted more and more having chosen it. Maybe he really was doing it for her own safety.

Whatever the reason for all the secrecy, it was time to try and get the conversation _away_ from his work.

“So your guards, they kill aliens too?”

“They are my students, Eden. Not my guards. Although should the need arise, they would be obligated to act as such.”

“They’re gonna be Inquisitors too? Like you?”

“Yes… that is their wish, and mine.”

“How’d you meet them?”

Drogan looked off in thought, at the room which was actually much nicer than any of the guest chambers - even his. Thinking back on what must’ve amounted to several lifetimes of memories, his gaze lingered on the small pile of used clothes, and then on the wardrobe, still open, the girl’s task half-finished. “Cain was assigned to me some time ago, I did not scout him myself. It was a fellow Inquisitor who discovered him… and his uncommon aptitude for combat. He couldn’t take another student at the time but did not want to see Cain’s talents go to waste.”

“And Ana? Was she given to you too?”

The Inquisitor shook his head slowly, side to side, before returning his attention to Eden. “Ana was not. I was deployed to her homeworld about forty years ago, leading a task force meant to take care of an _infestation_.”

“Aliens?”

“Not quite… though they were still mostly human, those men were Xenos worshippers. _Traitors_.”

He positively spat out the last word, and again did Eden decide the topic of conversation had been a mistake.

Fortunately, his ire was short-lived. A fond smile began to form instead. “My men and I arrived at the offending village - all but ash by that time - only to find one of the surviving residents had already taken care of every last traitor before my men could act.”

“Ana… killed them _all?_ ”

There must’ve been some sense of disbelief in the way she said it, because Drogan kept on. “She is a _very_ powerful Psyker. Far more potent than I will ever be. And she did not act alone. I put my offer to her that same day - to apprentice under me once she had been processed as a sanctioned Psyker.”

Eden had some knowledge of processing already. Sebastian didn’t talk much these days, not unless there was a message to relay and even then he’d sooner plug himself into the ship to deliver it, in fact he almost never left his chambers for _any_ reason, but Eden knew he’d knelt before the Emperor Himself as part of his training. She also knew it wasn’t like that for most.

“So… what about you?” she asked, taking another sip of her drink and looking up at the Inquisitor. “How’d _you_ get discovered? Where did _you_ come from?”

When he looked down at her, his face unreadable, she added, “If that’s okay to ask. Only if it’s okay.”

“It is.”

Again Drogan smiled to himself, as though casting his mind back to something long forgotten. “I came from a feral world named Skyrro… and remember very little of my childhood. I recall being raised by one of the local gangs in lieu of a true family, all I know was that my settlement had been destroyed… leaving few survivors. My blood brother had enough sense to take me out of harm’s way, I am told, and seek refuge with them.”

“I’m… sorry,” Eden said after a pause.

The look he gave her was probably meant to be encouraging. “Don’t be. The gangers took us in without question, and taught us how to survive on a world which showed mercy to no one.”

“So how’d you get discovered?”

“My psychic abilities manifested in my teens,” the Inquisitor said simply. “And unlike Anastasia, my powers did not go unnoticed. The Black Ship came to our world and collected me, as it collects almost all Psykers. From there I was taken to Terra, and processed.”

“Did you meet the Emperor?” Eden’s eyes were wide, unable to leave his.

“No. I did not have that honour. Instead I was tested extensively, my assessors found me more than adequate. So much so I’d have been trained as a space marine… were I not already several years too old. I was instead offered a very promising career within the Imperial Inquisition.”

Eden knelt, facing him. At some point she’d abandoned her Amasec, leaving the glass on her nightstand - since the Inquisitor had her full attention she was no longer interested in the drink. “…Do you regret that?” she asked. “Would you rather be a space marine?”

Drogan gazed intently at her, the slightest of frowns crossing his brow.

“Sorry… you don’t gotta tell me that.”

“It is quite all right… however it is difficult to say.”

As he took a moment to think, the two lapsed into silence. Except for the background humming and groaning of the ship around them, the minuscule sounds of two sets of hydraulics in two right arms was all that could be heard.

“The soldier in me relishes battle,” he decided, turning back to Eden. “To spend one’s life fighting in the name of our Emperor… to be molded into the perfect war machine, knowing only how to slay mankind’s greatest foes in His name… it is the highest honour for any man.”

Eden only nodded in agreement.

“Yet the scientist in me would be forever unsatisfied with such a life,” he continued. His eyes never left hers, not for a moment. “Even on Skyrro I fashioned traps and weapons for the benefit of my brothers. They were tools the Imperium at large would consider laughably primitive, yet on a world where crushing our rivals’ skulls with a _rock_ was the height of combat, they were _revolutionary_.”

Neither was able to tear their gaze from the other. At some point Drogan had come to kneel too, facing Eden, and they were so very close. The change in proximity had been so gradual, neither seemed to have noticed.

“I was born to create,” he continued, his voice but a low murmur. “And that same need remains to this day, it is my _true_ purpose - even if it is no longer I who assembles my grand weapon, but the Tech-priests under my command. The design was mine alone, my Tech-priests merely follow orders.”

It was Eden’s curiosity that dispelled the immersion. She straightened up, cocking her head in confusion. “You said you can’t talk about your work.”

Drogan didn’t respond straight away. He looked, admittedly, like he’d unwittingly given away something he definitely shouldn’t have. However, he recovered quickly, dark eyebrows raised just a little as he leaned over to the nightstand and placed his half-finished glass upon it. “Perhaps what I told you is hardly worth mentioning.”

He straightened up again and his gaze returned to Eden’s violet eyes, contemplating, just as close as he’d been before, close enough to raise a hand and touch. No… closer than that. “Perhaps I have come to trust you, Eden Ironside, in a way I should never trust anyone. Perhaps…”

He was so close now she could practically feel his every slow breath wash over her lips. She didn’t resist, even when Drogan’s flesh hand ghosted slowly across her clavicle, her neck, his fingers weaving gently through her long hair, drawing her in ever closer. “I cannot help myself. I confess I find myself invariably enchanted... each time I look in your eyes.”

Finally he closed the distance, his lips claiming hers in a slow yet deep kiss. Taken entirely by surprise, Eden returned it, a warmth coursing through her veins that no alcohol could match as their tongues met. So stunned by the reality of the situation, so stunned by the fact that she was _making out with an Inquisitor_ , she didn’t stop him. She couldn’t.

Only when she felt the cold metal of his right hand grazing up along her bare thigh, greedily claiming more ground as Drogan deepened the kiss, did she come to her senses. She broke away, timidly avoiding his eye and attempting to push his hand away from its new position at the join of her thigh, beneath her shorts. She couldn’t. She ducked out from his loose grip on her hair, and began to shuffle away.

“Riley says I ain’t allowed to fuck clients…” she mumbled, on instinct backing away further and landing on her ass in a bid to free herself from the curious touch beneath her underwear. It was true - there was so much more to it than that, but that much was definitely true. “Sorry.”

The fingers teasing at her clit withdrew, and Eden dared look at Drogan again. His pupils were huge as he gazed at her, still far closer than she should’ve ever let him be. It was a temporary retreat, however, as the next second he was upon her again. He climbed atop her small form, taking care to not _hurt_ the girl, and kissed her a second time.

“Your Captain asked of you to see all my needs met.” His voice was low as he broke away to say it, hardly a growl, but soft as he gazed into her eyes, and gentle yet callused fingers came up to her cheek. “And _this_ need… has not been met for far longer than I wish to admit.”

The deckhand scrambled to get out from underneath Drogan as quickly as was polite, but there was nowhere to go. All she could do was bargain her way out of this, and that was far easier said than done when metal fingers trailed down her stomach, under the band of her shorts, searching again for her clit and hitting their mark.

Eden stiffened as skilled digits rubbed slow circles on her bud. Her attempts to push him off her, gently, were in vain. “Ain’t there no one else who can help you out?” she pleaded. “ _Nowhere?_ I bet your Tech-priests would fuck you, I bet some of them would _love_ you… right?”

The Inquisitor placed slow kisses on the girl’s neck, sucking on pale flesh - although not too hard as to leave a mark - and he ground his hips as best he could into hers from his position, the erection straining at his pants was obvious despite the clothing separating the two of them. Eden realised at that moment just how serious the situation was.

He didn’t come up for air as he spoke and Eden felt him shake his head just a little, the metal of his skull - rust and all - scratching against her cheek.

“They are not an option,” he murmured between kisses that captured more and more ground, now somewhere just under her ear. “Tech-priests are far more machine than woman… they replace their living bodies with metal and practically neuter themselves in the process. They will not do.”

Finally he surfaced. “No one else will do. Only you.”

Metal fingers descended, teasing at her passage only for a brief moment, before pushing their way inside. Her hips bucked involuntarily and she made another fruitless attempt to scramble away, unable to hide her whimper as he claimed more depth, searching for a sweet spot inside of her.

“What-- what about Ana?” Eden babbled. “She’s _beautiful_ , I-- I ain’t never seen eyes like that on _no one!_ ”

Drogan ceased massaging her G-spot, a small smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. Maybe he found it funny that Eden of all people would pass such comment on the eyes of any other woman, but it was true.

“Yes… Ana is beautiful,” he replied. “And as a lover, she was more than any man could wish for. She would still be… had circumstances not forced us apart. We learned the hard way how complicated the relationship between acolyte and mentor can become… how some people are far better off keeping their distance.”

Suddenly Eden’s earlier run-in with the acolyte made sense. Anastasia was _jealous_ of her. Though she needn’t have been - Eden wasn’t exactly enjoying the position she was in. Whatever _circumstances_ had broken the two of them up were _her_ problem now as Drogan returned his attention to that most sensitive spot inside of her and the rather intrusive notion crossed her thoughts that he was _very_ good at what he was doing.

But enough was enough. This had to end _now_. The girl grabbed his wrist and yanked his hand away, and with a new confidence, pushed him off as hard as she could. He was impossibly strong and the force of her resistance didn’t budge him… but the message was clear, and finally he relented. Even then, Eden thought to herself that it had been _far_ too easy - given how persistent he’d so far been, not to mention the generous tent in his cargo pants, she couldn’t help but notice _that_ was still there - but she could only be glad that this was finally ending.

Eden pulled herself up into something more like a sitting position against the wall, easier now Drogan’s heavy body no longer trapped her there. He gave her space to move away, still kneeling ever so close, but otherwise didn’t react as Eden readjusted her shorts.

“Look, you’re amazing,” she said gently, sadly, meeting his eyes, still-blown pupils surrounded by glowing rings of stormy blue. It was just too soon. Inquisitor or not, she wasn’t about to jump into bed with a man she’d known for three days. “But I don’t know you… I ain’t _ready_ , I ain’t _like that_. Maybe… if we got longer to get to know each other, yeah, but…”

The rest of the air was wasted, coming out as a quiet sigh as she thought of the right words. If she was honest with herself she still found him quite frightening to look at, but she’d actually come to like him for who he was. With time, she could see herself coming around. Time they didn’t have. “I like you, I have fun with you, but… it’s just too much too fast. I’m sorry.”

The Inquisitor’s expression, always so calm and cool, didn’t change, and for a moment Eden thought he might do the right thing and leave her be. Before his hand came up to her cheek again, thumb stroking softly beneath her eye, and he gave the tiniest smile.

Drogan spoke all too calmly, so much so it was frightening. “Eden Ironside…” he whispered. “You forget you do not have the luxury of choosing to meet my demands. You forget my _authority_.”

As the last word spilled from his tongue, something lit up behind his eyes. A momentary flash of energy. It happened so fast Eden would surely have missed it if she’d looked away for even a moment but whatever it was, it had been there.

Eden tried to scramble back, further up against the wall but that was when she realised, as her arms and legs failed her completely, that she couldn’t move a muscle.

She _couldn’t move_.

 _What the_ fuck _is happening…_ she thought to herself, a blind panic beginning to take over. _What’s wrong with me?_

The sickening chill of pure, unadulterated dread spread through her whole body, her lungs screamed to work overtime yet whatever sickness was keeping her there, completely paralysed, it kept her breathing steady. Despite _that_ , her heart still pounded somewhere in her throat.

In her panic she recalled Drogan having psychic powers. Suddenly that seemed relevant. Was this _his_ doing?

As if in response to the unspoken question (not that she could open her mouth to speak), the Inquisitor straightened up a little, surveying the girl now well and truly trapped beneath him. Free to do whatever he wanted with her, both hands came up to the low cut of her vest and tore it down the middle with the ease of shredding paper. Eden felt her body lurch like a ragdoll in response to the exertion but she could only watch in horror as flesh and metal grazed lovingly over her now-bare breasts, squeezing just a little, rough thumb passing over a pale nipple, one way and then the other, and then back again, teasing it to attention, sending an electricity through her veins she couldn’t ignore.

His right hand placed as flat as possible on her chest, over her pounding heart.

“Try to relax,” he said simply. “It may not seem this way… but I want you to enjoy this.”

Drogan’s fingers came away to trail deliberately down her middle, like he was simply taking note of how her skin, completely hairless, felt to touch, before they reached the band of her shorts. He pulled those and her underwear completely off her motionless body. It wasn’t a seamless motion, but he lifted her ass up like she was truly weightless to do it, and cast the garments aside.

_No, this ain’t happening. No, please. This can’t happen._

Eden was beyond panic, forgetting her entire life as she stared up at the Inquisitor, who stared straight back as he reached down, undoing his own belt. He pulled his pants down only enough to free his cock - already stood to attention and leaking in anticipation - and Eden’s eyes fixed upon the organ as his flesh hand slowly stroked its generous length. The surge of terror within her was renewed - like the rest of him his dick was larger than life. She’d been expecting that. It wouldn’t fit, there was _no way_ she’d be able to take that, even by force.

This couldn’t be happening.

Suddenly he gripped her hips and dragged her down the bed, closer to where he knelt. The girl’s head came to rest on the pillows, and still unable to move she could no longer comfortably see anything below the Inquisitor’s stomach.

Maybe that was for the best, she thought to herself as she felt him push her thighs further apart and settle between them, saw the primal hunger light up his eyes as he did. This was happening and there was nothing she could do. When he positioned himself at her entrance, Eden could only steel herself for what was to come.

He began to force his way inside, with surprising care. The intrusion hurt enough to make Eden cry out, to scream at the ceiling, but she couldn’t. As he pushed his way in deeper, inch by inch in slow, experimental strokes, the deckhand supposed - trying not to _focus_ on what was happening, trying her hardest to ignore the low, satisfied groan that passed the Inquisitor’s lips - that it could’ve hurt worse, _should’ve_ hurt worse than it did.

Still keeping hold of the girl’s hips, Drogan finally hilted. His massive shoulders and chest rose and fell deeply as he struggled to retain a sense of composure, not taking his eyes off Eden’s - either unwilling or unable, and settled on a pace he seemed content with. And Eden, by now somewhat resigned to her fate, didn’t expect him to fuck her quite as gently as he did, each thrust measured and deliberate. She squeezed her eyes shut - the only part of her she seemed to have voluntary control over. Now he’d set a pace it didn’t hurt at all - Eden realised with a stab of shame that she was actually wet.

“Yes…” he crooned, so quiet she could barely hear. “ _Eden_ …”

She felt his hips press into her own each time he filled her up, knowing that meant only one thing - she was taking his whole dick each time. How did she even _manage_ that? Where was it going? Surely her body didn’t have the space to accommodate him. Were his psychic abilities causing that too?

“Look at me…” Drogan breathed, his pace faster now, a little less gentle. “I want to see your eyes.”

Reluctantly, Eden did as she was told - just as he pulled out completely. For a moment the girl wondered whether that was it - _prayed_ that was it - only for her heart to sink as he dropped to his elbows, heavy body still pinning down her own. He placed hungry kisses on the mound of her tits, groping roughly, sucking at her nipples before driving deep inside of her in a single stroke and resuming his earlier pace.

Eden felt his heavy breaths collect in a wet spot on her skin as Drogan placed quick, desperate kisses on her jaw. Just a couple, and then he claimed her mouth again. Rough stubble scratched at her lips and chin, and on instinct alone the girl pulled away as best she could - she could move again! It was with a renewed hope she pushed at the Inquisitor’s shoulders, every drop of strength she had dedicated in that moment to pushing him away but it was a hopeless grapple - he was utterly immovable. There was no way out of this.

A growl of irritation washed from Drogan’s lungs as he fucked her, faster now, not even bothering to brush off her feeble attempt to defy him. His metal hand reached behind Eden’s head, taking a fistful of dark blond hair at the roots, and held her firmly in place. He met her in another crushing kiss, deep, hungry. One-sided.

“Kiss me…” he whispered, only breaking away to demand co-operation.

She didn’t. She couldn’t. Despite himself Drogan snarled again, halting completely, still deep inside of her. Eden whimpered as the grip on her hair tightened painfully, and the expression on his scarred face at that moment was mortifying.

“ _I order it_.”

That was it. The moment she was finally defeated. Eden returned the kiss with all the enthusiasm she could muster - maybe if she gave him what he wanted, he’d finish sooner. The hands still placed on Drogan’s powerful shoulders travelled gently across the fabric of his T-shirt, coming to rest on his expansive back. Almost on cue, his cock throbbed deep inside of her, but it didn’t take long for his assault on the girl to resume in full. He moaned languidly into her mouth, not coming up for air.

Eden could no longer deny thoughts that what was happening actually felt good, and at that she began to quietly sob. Having to fuck the Inquisitor was bad enough, it was bad enough she was wet for him, and now she was _enjoying_ the experience. Her own body had betrayed her.

Drogan’s free hand came to her cheek, thumb wiping away the tears that made tracks along her skin as they fell. “Do not cry…” he panted into her ear, still pistoning into her.

It was clear from the dreamy expression that crossed his face, and the small movements, that he wouldn’t need much longer. Throughout the assault he’d been somewhat gentle with her, but whatever restraint or mercy he’d so far exercised had run its course. Somewhere along the way, measured strokes had devolved into wild rutting, vicious and frantic. As the pressure within her began to build, more and more with each second, each brutal rut, each breath hot on her cheek, Eden’s fingertips pressed hard into the muscles of the Inquisitor’s back. She fought away the fresh tears welling in her eyes.

The bed frame rattled against the wall, over and over as he pounded into her. It hadn’t been so noticeable at first but now Eden found she could tune into the rhythmic thud, metal frame against the plasterboard. She was able to distract herself from her reality. Whose chambers were next to hers? Who’d be hearing this? It took her a few seconds in her haze to remember - it was Emanuel’s room. Internally, Eden thanked the Emperor for that… he wouldn’t be there, he’d still be piloting them through the warp-

“Look at me!” Drogan snarled, snapping her straight back to reality.

As she obeyed, tears obscured her vision - the image of his half-lidded eyes fixed on hers was little more than a blur. Maybe that was for the best. Her own breaths came heavy as she fought away her growing climax, hopeless to stop it. She couldn’t come, she just _couldn’t_ come. It was bad enough she was wet, even worse she was enjoying it. Not this too. She _had_ to be spared that.

The Emperor must’ve been looking on her kindly as she prayed it wouldn’t be so - the Inquisitor’s face buried in the crook of her neck, laboured breaths collecting hot and heavy against her skin.

“I’m _coming_ …” he gasped.

The relief Eden felt as those words spilled from his lungs, it was short-lived. The force with which he hilted, one final time, made her whimper again, fingers digging so hard into his back it would surely bruise. Atop her she felt him shudder, within her depths she felt him throb. As he emptied inside of her, Drogan’s guttural moan was lost in the crook of Eden’s neck, followed by nothing but hot breath, hard and heavy.

It was over, but he didn’t get up. For a while he stayed there, atop her, inside her, breathing like he’d run a marathon. Against her own chest, she felt his heart pounding.

“...I needed that,” Drogan whispered into the girl’s ear, softly, on an exhale.

Then, finally, he eased off her. He pulled out slowly, then rose to his knees and fixed his pants and belt. Unable to look at him, unable to _bring herself_ to look at him, Eden fixed her gaze on the far wall, staring at nothing in particular but tuning into the creaking of the bedsprings as he moved off it, and stood. She didn’t move. After what had just taken place, the silence that filled the room was utterly unbearable.

As Drogan made his way towards the door, warm cum started to leak from between Eden’s thighs, forming a wet pool on the bedsheets beneath her ass. She still lay there, unmoving, she still fixed intently at the wall. When he reached the door, he turned back to her for a moment, like there was something he wanted to say.

Eden shut her eyes. She couldn’t take the silence any longer, nor him looking back like he might end it. Whatever it was he’d wanted to say - if anything - he didn’t offer it. The clang of a metal hand placing on the metal button that opened the door. It slid open, and when Eden finally dared look over, he was gone. Soon his strides, fainter and fainter along the walkway outside, were out of earshot, and Eden was left truly alone.

The deckhand didn’t really know how much time had passed before she finally sat up, but carefully, she swung her legs over the edge of her bed, and even more carefully, she got to her feet. She didn’t take one step before her legs - like jelly, shaking dangerously - gave way beneath her. Eden let herself drop to hands and knees on the carpet, the impact barely registering in her mind.

Walking wasn’t going to be an option, she decided without any real thought, and began to crawl to the bathroom as best she could. She didn’t make it far though - time had run out. With a violently-trembling hand she reached out and grabbed the small trash can by her nightstand, dragged it to where she knelt, bent low over and vomited into it.

Throat and nose burning, Eden coughed up the last of it when done, breathing steady, but ragged breaths into the otherwise-quiet space. Again she spat into the trash can. For a few more minutes she stayed where she was.

“ _Eden? Are you still up?_ ”

The voice from her Servo-skull made her jump, head spinning wildly to look it in its empty eyes. It hovered before her. It had seen everything.

Eden took a moment to prepare herself to speak, tried as hard as she could to quiet her still-ragged breaths. Riley couldn’t know. “Y--yeah Riley?”

“ _I hate to call on you so late but we’ve lost light in the cockpit. D’you think you can take care of it? I’m_ really _sorry._ ”

“Yeah… ‘s fine Riley. Just gonna get dressed.”

She supposed she couldn’t stay on the floor any longer. With her augmetic hand, much sturdier than her flesh, Eden gripped hold of the nightstand and, with the utmost care, hauled herself to her feet. Even as she did, more of Drogan’s cum trailed down her thigh. She could take care of that later. She had to get changed.

The deckhand grabbed whatever was at the top of her mountain of clothes, and after peeling off her ruined vest, damp with sweat, she dressed. With great care she pulled on her boots, relying on her steady arm to support her, braced against the wall. Before she left, Eden took a look back at the corner in which sat her bed, at the mess of bed linen, damp and bloodied near the middle.

She’d been told the first time would be like that.

But she’d have to change the sheets later. Right now she had to get back to work. Without a second thought, Eden staggered to the doorway on still-shaking legs, clinging to the wall as she hit the button to let her out. Before she crossed the walkway, she locked the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fool's gold shines like diamonds in our eyes,  
> Thought we had a million, but baby, we got nothing"
> 
> \- _Fool's Gold_ , Fitz and the Tantrums


	7. Chapter 7

That night, Eden slept on the bedroom floor. Though she’d changed the ruined bed linen the first opportunity she was given, somehow the thought of sleeping in her bed was more difficult than that of curling up on the carpet, and so that was what she did. And at some point in the night, the Colossus had exited the warp. The turbulence woke the deckhand as the ship crossed back over into their reality, but half-asleep and already exhausted, she wasn’t fazed, and quickly fell asleep again. And when the time finally came to get up, shower, and dress, she barely remembered waking at all.

When that time finally came, there was hardly a single part of her that wasn’t aching - to touch or move - or even bruised. Alexandria’s Genesis made her unusually durable as a human being but that didn’t stop her feeling pain. Eden supposed, as she stepped out of the shower and cast a reluctant glance at her naked form in the steam-coated mirror, observing what was bruised and what was simply hurting, that about half of that was probably due to sleeping on the floor. Her hot shower hadn’t helped much with it, either.

Slowly, she dressed, and let herself out of the bathroom. She hadn’t slept long - an early start was in order now the Colossus rapidly approached the Forge World. It was time to bid farewell to their guests.

Just the thought of Drogan, let alone that of actually being _around_ him, was enough to make Eden want to hurl again. There was _no way_ she could face him, there was _no way_ she was going down there. Riley would just have to manage without her.

She knew exactly where her Captain would be at that point in the journey. Eden walked over to the vox on the far wall, and tiredly punched in the extension for the cockpit. She waited a moment, listening to the background crackling until she made it through.

“...Hey, Riley?” the girl spoke timidly, resting her head against the wall and closing her eyes.

“ _Eden, we’ve got thirty minutes until we start preparing to dock,_ ” came the familiar, comforting voice of her Captain. “ _Since we have an Inquisitor on board we’ll get moved right up the queue. …Do you need something?_ ”

“Yeah. I ain’t feeling so good.”

It wasn’t a lie. Internally, Eden prayed that it wouldn’t immediately occur to Riley, that people with her condition didn’t tend to get sick. Even if they didn’t, she certainly felt it.

“…I’m gonna go back to bed. Can you take care of stuff for me?”

“ _No problem Eden. I’ll check in on you shortly, but right now I’m busy._ ”

“Thanks.”

Metal finger pressed to a single button to end the call and Eden, awash with relief - she’d actually been able to _avoid_ dealing with it - finally slunk into bed. She hid herself under the covers, trying hard not to ponder over what had taken place there only hours before. Sleep came mercifully quick.

However, it seemed like her head barely touched the pillows for a single minute, her eyes hardly shut for all that long before her Captain was in the room. As the sound of the door opening woke Eden, she opened her eyes, tiredly, just enough to see Riley’s small form coming closer and closer.

“Mmh…” was all Eden could manage in greeting.

Riley stopped at the edge of the bed. “Emperor, you look _awful_ ,” she announced, leaning over a little to get a better look at the girl. She put the back of her hand to Eden’s forehead. “What _happened to you?_ Must be something nasty to make _you_ ill.”

Eden said nothing. Instead she shrunk further into the covers, a small whimper lost in her throat.

“I ain’t feeling so good,” she repeated, the words muffled in amongst the mass of blankets.

“I can tell _that_. Take all the time you need, I’ll take care of things until you’re better. Just make sure you stay in bed.”

Eden’s relief was stripped away along with the blankets covering her.

“After we’ve seen off the Inquisition.”

Her latest whimper had more to do with the cold chill crawling up her spine, as her Captain said it. She stared up at Riley, frozen where she lay.

“I hate to do this to you now, but it’s the last push,” Riley continued. In her defence, she looked genuinely apologetic as she gazed down at the deckhand. “Then you can rest. C’mon, we’ve made it to Graia.”

She started to leave, making her way back across the room. As she opened the door she added, “The Inquisitor wants to see you. He told me he’d like to say goodbye. You need to come.”

After that, the deckhand was left alone, her dread still fixing her in place. She stayed in bed for a few minutes more, listening distractedly to the sounds of the world outside the ship’s walls - the walls were thick so anything she could hear was faint and vague, but the thrumming of engines, coming and going from whatever starport they’d landed on were unmistakeable. She did this until she could no longer delay her obligation.

When Eden finally got to her feet and approached the door, she tried to urge herself on with thoughts that it wouldn’t take all that long, and then it would all be behind her. Thoughts that she didn’t actually have to go near Drogan. None of it really helped. And before she knew it, she was standing outside the foyer, and the voices of their clients were clear from the other side of the blast door.

She raised her fist and let it sink the button into the wall, and as the door opened, and she made her way in, she forced herself to look up and address the room.

Natural light - actual sunlight - was a truly uncommon sight for those like Eden, who spent their lives aboard cruisers and other such crafts. Even now she approached the Inquisitor, the light pouring in through the lowered ramp offered the girl a sense of calm. Out on the surface of the Forge World, the sunlight was harsh but mottled and overcast as it fell on the metal slope. Even as she looked down to it, a hot breeze blew a dusting of white sand up the ramp, through any gaps it could find and into the foyer. Eden lowered her gaze further and watched it drift over her bare feet.

“Eden, you’re here!” Riley announced as soon as she saw the deckhand. She wore quite possibly the biggest smile Eden had ever seen as she returned her attention to Drogan. “You’ll have to excuse her, she’s come down with something. Best not to keep her too long.”

The only person not present was Emanuel, who was surely getting all the sleep he possibly could before the next, inevitable trip back through the warp. Even Sebastian had left his chambers to see the guests off. If _Sebastian_ had made it down, there wasn’t any sickness that could possibly excuse Eden from being there. Despite being present, the Astropath blended into the very furniture of the room - all grey, thinning hair and skin almost transparent to look at. He was younger than Riley but his duty had aged him almost beyond comprehension. He hung back in a corner of the foyer and while unseeing eyes - blank and grey - roved over the room, bouncing from voice to voice, he said nothing.

The two acolytes were carrying those strained knapsacks again. As Eden approached the group, Cain was beaming - surely he didn’t have a clue what had happened, and even now he seemed utterly oblivious to the growing tension in the room.

“Thanks for everything,” he said warmly, before raising something to his face. It was a mask - the acolyte’s pretty features were covered with an emotionless metal face. Eden had no idea what its purpose was (not that she particularly cared) but in contrast with the kind man beneath, it was terrifying to look at. Once it was in place and sufficiently obscuring all his visible humanity, Cain pulled up his hood. He was the first to turn and descend the ramp, out into the hot wind and blazing sun.

Dedicated entirely to delaying the inevitable, Eden next turned to Anastasia, nervously avoiding her eye. If looks could kill, the deckhand would surely be reduced to ashes and bone in that moment. There was no doubt about it - Anastasia knew.

“...Bye,” Eden mumbled. There would be no forgetting the way the acolyte stared her down. “Good luck with becoming an Inquisitor and stuff…”

As she followed Cain out onto the surface of the Forge World, Anastasia said nothing. She pushed past Eden, briskly, descending the ramp until she too was out of sight.

The Inquisitor was in full armour again, right down to the thing on his back. And as he gazed down at Eden - who paled impossibly just having to meet his eye - he looked as cool and calm as ever. As though the previous night had never happened. As though… Eden couldn’t stand the thought that it might be just another day for Drogan, but the ease with which he’d exerted his limitless power… it was impossible to put those thoughts away.

Words failed the girl entirely. Something cold as ice crept up her spine. It filled her extremities, rooting her to the spot. Not Drogan’s doing this time - now she was paralysed by her own dread. She feared the man more now than when the journey had begun. Just how many times had he done this? How many girls, in all those hundreds of years?

There was something warm in the look he gave her.

How did he _live with himself?_

She couldn’t help but think it.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, she swallowed back her nausea, and what felt like a torrent of saliva. “Bye… thanks for choosing us.”

When his hand placed, gently, to her shoulder - his gauntlet on her metal - it took all the energy Eden had left not to hurl right then and there. Though he was surely clean as could be, the touch was filthy, and lingered long after. She blinked away tears.

“Take care, Eden.”

That was all Drogan said before following his acolytes down the ramp in long, effortless strides. When he was mercifully out of sight, Eden glanced across the foyer, looking over to her Captain. Riley still beamed at her - she must know something Eden didn’t. They must’ve gotten _some_ assurance that their business would be recommended… otherwise Riley wouldn’t look quite so pleased.

At least she didn't know.

For a short while longer, the deckhand stared blankly out at the cruel sunlight outside, bleaching the sands beneath which had already swept away their guests' departing footprints. Another sudden gust blew more of it up the ramp and it settled in the metal grating.

“We’re done,” came Riley’s voice from somewhere behind her. “Go on, get some sleep. We’ll stay for a while, if you’re still not feeling up to it I’ll take inventory… then we’ll leave.”

“Mmhm…”

She wasn’t really listening to anything her Captain said… her mind was elsewhere. Maybe, she thought to herself, it might not be her place to wonder how the Inquisitor lived with himself. After all, they were from two different worlds. She couldn’t even begin to imagine his.

After what seemed like an age, Eden tore her gaze away from the sands, and crossed the foyer into the cockpit. She found the lever on the back wall which operated the ramp, and wrenched it upwards. And with a reluctant groan, the heavy ramp began to rise, darkening the foyer little by little until all natural light was shut away.

Drogan’s words the night before rattled around her head as though there was some use to them being in there. Maybe there was. Maybe he really _had_ needed it, maybe their paths really _did_ have to cross like that. Everything happened for a reason, after all. The Emperor wouldn’t have orchestrated their meeting, wouldn’t have asked she go through what she’d gone through, if it wasn’t of _benefit_ to the Inquisitor. And anything that helped _him_ out would surely help all mankind in the end. Hard as it was to accept, it was an honour, in a way, to have contributed to the wars they fought.

All Eden could do now the job was done, was to get on with her life. Get away from all of it. After all, it was a difficult galaxy they lived in - her beginnings on the hive world had taught her that much already - and it was one that didn’t care for her feelings. It didn’t care much about anyone.

She left the foyer, and made her way back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first decided to write this, the original idea was for Eden to be a doctor on board one of the Valkyries on Graia (you know, tending to Drogan's wounds), mid-canon, and it was actually gonna be a nice, quick one-shot. It was my first playthrough of _Space Marine_ though so obviously I held off to see where things went. Needless to say, I'm glad I did. I kept the "on board a ship" theme and took an idea from something else I was gonna write in which the main character was common folk. And now here we are.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Have you no idea that you're in deep?  
> I dreamed about you nearly every night this week.  
> How many secrets can you keep?  
> 'Cause there's this tune I've found that makes me think of you, somehow, and I play it on repeat."
> 
> \- _Do I Wanna Know_ , The Arctic Monkeys
> 
> (Honestly I love love _love_ this song for Drogan, it's a perfect fit for him. Just... unbelievably sexy and kinda brooding, but also undeniably creepy)
> 
> Yeah, canon-typical bad stuff coming up. It's (potentially) not as bad as what's already come, but get ready.

It seemed as though Inquisitor Drogan looked down at his console for mere seconds, and by the time he stole a glance back up, out the window ahead, the mist had blanketed what had been clear skies the last time he’d looked, and settled over the horizon. Sandstorms came without warning on Graia. It was distant, yet also near - the orange haze obscured even the closest of the facility’s adjacent buildings almost entirely, so much so he could only just make out their outlines, and only then because he knew they were there to begin with.

On days like this it was better to stay inside the shelter of the Kalkys facility, as the sand got everywhere if one was to venture out in a storm. It collected rough on the skin, like sugar - not a light dusting but thick, hot, damp and _sticky_ , and clung to skin, hair, clothing, armour and augmetics alike, taking days to completely remove from one’s body.

And it smelled like shit. Drogan didn’t know whether there was _actually_ shit in amongst the sand, and all the other debris the storms kicked up, but he didn’t care enough to find out. Needless to say, unless there was a damn good reason to leave, he’d be staying put.

Construction continued on the grand weapon. To his right, Drogan looked down at it, through the glass that took up almost the whole wall. This room overlooked the magnificent weapon - part of it, at least - and the servitors and Tech-priests working tirelessly on it. _Passionately_ , in the case of the latter. Sometimes he couldn’t be sure he was more keen to see the Psychic Scourge fully built than they were.

His task was straightforward. Up in that room Drogan manned one of several consoles that controlled the weapon. If a portion needed to be moved or adjusted, the request would come over the vox and he would respond remotely. Being holed up there, alone, doing virtually nothing for long periods of time, it was certainly necessary but that didn’t stop it being mind-numbing work. He craved action, and after even a few hours up there the silence was getting on top of him.

Luckily for him, distant screaming fast approached his position to interrupt the monotony. The commotion came closer and closer, along the corridors until it was right outside the blast doors. They opened to reveal the small raiding party he’d sent out, not even a week before, had returned - and they weren’t empty-handed.

The specimen was unarmed and unarmoured - almost naked actually, its bare skin taut against prominent bones and lean muscle, pale and littered with fresh bruises, burns and other miscellaneous lacerations, and the only reason it was possible to bring such a specimen in fully-conscious like this was Anastasia. Whatever psychic abilities the specimen had, they were nothing against hers and she was able to keep it from breaking its bonds in a way Drogan would never be capable. In her company, it was completely harmless. Despite the shackles at its wrists, she insisted on keeping its arms forced in place behind its back as she shoved it along. Pure loathing lit up her emerald eyes.

It wasn’t necessary to bring specimens into the facility through this route, yet over time the designated raiding party had learned to bring them by wherever the Inquisitor was at the time. They’d learned how valuable moments like these were to him, and it was the same reason he preferred the specimens arriving fully-conscious. Where possible, of course. He wanted to be there when their fate dawned on them all in one go. He loved seeing the terror wash over their alien faces.

This specimen was Eldar. It looked fairly young, as far as Eldar went, but still adult. And at a glance he judged it to be fairly healthy. This one was male - the Eldar were a fairly androgynous species, physically speaking, and that was common knowledge, yet certain characteristics defined the sexes in ways that were unsettlingly similar to those of human beings. The males tended towards deeper voices, and although lithe they were usually taller and broader than females, not to mention they lacked breasts. And like humans, there were key differences in the bone structure of their faces that told the sexes apart, yet unlike humans those differences were far less pronounced.

It still hollered, gibbering in its own tongue, and from this the Inquisitor was able to conclude this one was _not_ one of the Dark Kin, because he was, unfortunately, practically fluent in one tongue… and not the other. It was with a strange mix of pride and shame that Drogan was able to pick out enough of this tongue to get a general idea of what it was saying. It talked a big talk, about never being defeated and standing tall in the face of adversity, some derogatory remarks were thrown in the mix, yet Drogan knew the elf only spouted these words to hide how afraid it really was. Even in its restraints its body language screamed primal fear.

Drogan smiled to himself at that, despite the primal fear that ran wild in his _own_ core at the sight of the creature. It had been so many years now - time (and a couple of choice augmetics) had fixed his body, but it had taken a neural implant to fix his waking moments and allow him to truly function again. Post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the medics. Even then, he still couldn’t help but feel a sense of terror whenever he saw the elves - Dark Kin or not - that no augmetic could suppress completely.

But in a way, he was thankful for _that_ , the extra adrenaline had actually saved his life on the battlefield. On more than one occasion.

Still hollering, the creature met his eyes for only a second, before Anastasia, in her tan cloak, shoved it further across the room. One of the red-cloaked acolytes approached the door in advance, and it was open before the rest of the party reached it. And Cain, in his tan cloak, was at Drogan’s right side. His hand outstretched, fist closed over something. A jewel, the Inquisitor realised as he took it in his right hand, seeming smaller in his own palm than it was in his acolyte’s.

The two exchanged a knowing look, a satisfied nod of the Inquisitor’s head. As he watched Cain retreat, following the rest of his retinue through the door towards the screams that grew fainter and fainter with each passing second, Drogan closed his metal fist around the stone. The tiny crunch was barely audible at all as the jewel shattered, and it gave with a satisfying release of pressure.

He discarded the remains with no ceremony, and turned back to his console. He got back to work, keeping to his tedious task in complete solitude for perhaps half an hour more before he was interrupted again.

“ _Incoming message, my lord_.”

The words weren’t spoken, as such. They went straight into the Inquisitor’s head. Despite that, his attention still snapped on instinct towards the Servo-skull that floated somewhere at chest height, locking his eyes onto the glowing red sensors jammed in its sockets. The voice wasn’t discernably male _or_ female, it simply was. While the words of these messages were those typed up by the resident Astropaths, it was the Servo-skull’s own voice that relayed them.

“Continue,” he spoke.

“ _Following our previous inquiries to the Merchant Fleet_ ,” it kept on, floating wherever Drogan was looking at the time. “ _They have responded to your request for passage_.”

The Inquisitor wasn’t truly aware that the words had frozen him in place. Far too busy processing the information, he didn’t appreciate how hard his fingertips gripped the edge of the console. Needless to say, he’d been anticipating this message for a long time.

Inquisitor Lord Sharpe demanded updates on the Psychic Scourge _in person_ every six Terran months, and the time fast approached for Drogan to make a return trip to the holy world, and provide the latest report. It had been almost six months now since he last returned from there… and since his fateful encounter with the girl.

With her almost constantly on his mind, six months had seemed an awful lot longer than it was.

Indeed, the girl had been on his mind more often than he was comfortable with _any_ one person being on his mind for. But he reasoned, after a little soul-searching, that interest was entirely scientific. After all, he would never meet another with her condition for as long as he lived. Such an interest was only natural.

Which was why he had to see her again. Drogan had waited, not quite anxiously but not exactly calmly, for the months to pass. For enough time to elapse that a booking could be placed on that same cruiser for the return trip to Terra. He simply _had_ to see her again, now he knew she was out there, and accessible within reason. He still had so many questions about the Genesis, some three or four days just wasn’t enough time to learn everything he wanted to know.

No longer was he able to tell himself it was simply about the Genesis, though. He’d only been lying to himself. All her _unique_ features aside, Eden was beautiful - in a way that was unusual for common folk such as her. Maybe her beauty _was_ uncommon, that was entirely possible, but it could also be telling of the physical potential of common folk, had they access to a shower, clean clothes and a few grooming tools.

Even as he thought it, the Inquisitor felt it quite inappropriate to call the girl that. _Common_ folk. She was anything but, and the deeper he’d dug beyond the surface, beyond the simplicity and instincts ingrained in hive folk, that had only proved more true. Why else would she be on his mind so often, were that not the case? His fixation wasn’t entirely scientific after all… apparently it was far more personal than that.

If he booked a _return_ trip, Drogan could easily stand the Colossus and its crew down for a few days while he saw to his duties. This would give him a little under one week in transit with Eden - maybe longer if that journey went less smoothly than the last had. From there he could pick up where they left off (suffice to say, the whores who traded on Graia no longer satisfied, not after her), and only when the ship had safely touched down on the planet surface would he drop the bombshell - Eden would be staying on the Forge World with him, his retinue and his Tech-priests.

“What was the response?” he asked the skull, after what felt like an age lost in his own fantasies. “Have they confirmed a booking?”

Only then did he realise just how tense he’d gotten. How his heart beat just that little bit harder at the thought of what was to come. He began to pace about the room, walking off that restless feeling, and all the while the Servo-skull kept at his side.

There would be a place for her at the facility, and she would be trained as a _personal assistant_ of sorts, doing whatever needed doing.

It would be safer for her, down on the Forge World. Living on board a cruiser was far too risky, even at the best of times. She was better off that way. And needless to say, with her living at the Kalkys facility he’d be able to fuck her whenever he wanted.

Drogan had travelled the galaxy a long time. He’d learned to seize the unique artefacts, and the exceptional people, and claim them as his own before someone else did.

Her Captain wouldn’t be happy, of that much he was certain. Which was the reason he’d be waiting until the end of the trip to make his intentions known. Of course it would be a massive inconvenience to remove such a crucial member of her staff so suddenly, he understood that. Which was why she would be compensated - and since his authority over the girl far outweighed the Captain’s, he didn’t even have to do _that_. He could just take her, and it was his decision to make. Compensating her Captain was simply a polite gesture.

Eden herself wouldn’t be happy with the arrangement either, if the way she’d reacted to him, when they’d said their goodbyes, was anything to go by. It hadn’t been easy for him to see the look of betrayal in her eyes after the time - that wasn’t how he’d wanted their time together to end. He hadn’t wanted her to actively fight him like that - the Inquisitor was used to women offering themselves happily to him, or being offered to him. Power tended to do that to lesser folk. Sometimes their reluctance would be fairly obvious, yet still they would submit. Eden was the first to refuse him like that. Physical force had never been truly necessary until then.

Maybe that was why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

She would need time, he reasoned to himself. She’d come around and they’d be together in the end.

 _One way or another, I will make her mine_ , Drogan thought to himself.

Thoughts of her now flowed freely through his mind like water through a broken dam. He could easily picture those perfect violet eyes, wide and alluring, gazing up at him, her lips around his cock, and as he did, he felt himself grow uncomfortably hard beneath his power armour - just the mere thought of her seemed to be enough to get him going nowadays.

At _that_ , he came to his senses. Now was not the time.

Still pacing steadily about the room, he let his attention return to the skull which had apparently been waiting for him to come out of his own thoughts before responding.

“ _Booking failed, my lord_ ,” was all it said as it seemed to stare him down.

Drogan stopped in his tracks. This news only mildly irritated him, but it was nothing he couldn’t get to the bottom of. “Explain.”

“ _Registered company ‘Charter Colossus’ ceased trading approximately two months ago_ ,” the skull- the voice, replied.

There could be any number of reasons for that, Drogan reassured himself with that same thought, over and over as he dashed across the room and grabbed his data-slate. Even as he booted up the device, navigated to the desired database and punched in an access code, his heart began to race and a cold chill began to seep into his remaining natural extremities. He pinged the access code over to his Servo-skull before speaking again.

There could be any number of reasons for it, but the dread lingering in the pit of his stomach made it hard to keep on prying. “Search Imperial Fleet,” he spoke. His voice didn’t yet betray a thing.

“ _Ready._ ”

“Search Merchant Fleet.”

“ _Ready._ ”

“Search Vehicles.”

“ _Ready_.”

“Identify Colossus. Reverse-Galahad Four-One class. Check status.”

“ _Destroyed mid-transit._ ”

It took all the Inquisitor’s focus to retain some semblance of calm in that moment. It wasn’t over yet. There was always a chance.

“Search Crew.”

“ _Ready_.”

“Identify Captain Riley Riley. Check status.”

“ _Deceased._ ”

He already knew, but he had to find out for sure. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t just leave it there. “Identify Eden Ironside. Check status.”

“ _Deceased_.”

Drogan lashed out instantly. The next thing he was aware of, as the word filled his head and the rest of his life seemed to melt away around him, was his metal hand, outstretched and trembling, grasping so hard onto the skull it would soon break. His heart pounded somewhere in his throat.

“DECEASED?” he snarled back at it through gritted teeth. He didn’t let go.

“ _Affirmative_.” It spoke as though it wasn’t in the process of being crushed, but the lights within its sensors flickered momentarily.

He hadn’t been expecting it to _actually respond_ , hadn’t been expecting it to add more salt to the wound. As though suddenly far too hot to touch, too painful, the Inquisitor let go, sparing it from destruction.

Still he stared it down, though there was nothing else it could tell him, nothing he or it could do to make things right. There was absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.

Except that wasn’t true, Drogan thought to himself, suddenly coming to his senses, snapping back to reality and remembering who he was. There was plenty - namely his grand weapon, and the innumerable monsters it was destined to destroy. That was all that mattered. It wasn’t like him to obsess over a woman, much less common folk like her. Life was too short, too uncertain to get attached to _anyone_. And needless to say, he was above that.

Fortunately for him that hadn’t happened, he thought to himself as he crossed the room again - offering a small prayer for the poor girl's soul as he did, and internally hoping her death had been relatively quick - and returned to his console, and to the vox- the Tech-priests who had evidently been trying to get his attention for some time.

He hadn’t actually had _real feelings_ for her, he was sure of it.

His interest had been entirely scientific, nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think anyone would ever read this so to anyone who made it this far, big thanks and big love. People have had really nice things to say about this so far and I love everyone who gave nice words and upvotes on something I was so nervous to upload.
> 
> Since there's like, no fan fiction about Drogan of any kind that I could find (let alone any porn) I didn't expect anyone would read this one but I had to write this one for my own sanity.
> 
> Didn't expect Anastasia to steal the show for me, completely and utterly. In fact, I wasn't 100% sure until I started writing, that I wanted him to have any retinue with him or not (I decided he should have _someone_ with him in case of emergency to send out a distress call) and that considered, I'm amazed at how much she's grown as a character for me. Like, I even have a tabletop model for her I intend to run.
> 
> Drogan and Anastasia have stories of their own, many of them, and maybe some day I will write a couple of them down.


End file.
